"Verizon has already started promoting the new Treo, the first Palm handheld to run on Windows Mobile," Segan writes. "Palm has worked frantically to add 'one-handedness' to the notoriously stylus-heavy Windows Mobile OS, and the company's software improvements may set the Treo 700w apart from the pack of Windows handhelds."

Although Palm has not disclosed hardware specs, the Windows Mobile Treo (shown in Bill Gates's hand at right) can be expected to be similar, from a hardware perspective, to the Treo 650. The 650 is based on a 312 MHz Intel PXA270 XScale processor, is equipped with 23 MB of user-available nonvolatile memory, sports a 320 x 320 resolution, 16-bit color-TFT touchscreen, provides SD/SDIO/MMC card expansion, and features a full backlit QWERTY keyboard with number pad. Key "confirmed" specs include 64 MB of memory, a one megapixel camera, and integrated Bluetooth wireless.

"Our big question is whether Motorola will have its Q device ready to compete," Segan continues. "The Q [pictured at left] looks like a cross between a RAZR and a Blackberry, and was recently certified by the FCC for CDMA networks like those used by Verizon, Sprint, and Alltel. Releasing both the Treo and the Q would be a powerful one-two email punch for Verizon -- though Motorola may keep the Q in the wings for a big release at the the CTIA trade show in April."

Motorola calls the Q "the thinnest, lightest, coolest QWERTY [mobile phone] on the planet." The Q integrates a QWERTY keyboard and 1.3 megapixel camera into a compact and thin smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0. At slightly less than a half inch, the Q is 50 percent thinner than its top competitors, Motorola says.

Segan is also hoping to catch a glimpse of what Korean phone vendor Pantech calls "Korea's first" Windows Mobile smartphone.

The PH-S8000T runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition on an Intel PXA270 processor and was developed "in close partnership with Microsoft and Intel," according to Pantech. It features a 1.3 megapixel camera, MP3 player, VOD, photo caller ID, and Yamaha 64 poly-tone sound.

Read the complete PCMag.com story here.

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