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Palm's Not Dead Yet

The world got a tantalizing peak at a highly-anticipated touchscreen smartphone that's supposed to come out this weekend. That's right folks, it looks like the Treo 800w was showing its bad self all over the Internet today.

According to Engadget Mobile, the 436-page manual went live on Sprint's site today. Of course, someone got wise and replaced it with a needless PDF that says "Palm Treo 800w User's Guide … Coming Soon."

The phone is still expected to be released July 13 for $249 on Sprint's network, and with Palm teetering near the edge of the cliff, the company has a lot riding on this puppy.

It's a perfectly fine smartphone too. It'll be packing Windows Mobile 6.1, integrated GPS and Wi-Fi, high-speed mobile Internet, threaded SMS, a 320 by 320 touchscreen, a more Centro-esque size, and I always felt the Palm UI was unjustly criticized. But, I have a hard time seeing this phone gaining much traction. On Sprint alone, the Samsung Instinct and various BlackBerrys are far more attractive. I guess it's just hard to muster any enthusiasm for this smartphone, or Palm in general, for that matter.

The companies may also want to look into firing the ad wizards behind the July 13 release date, because even if this thing cooked you breakfast it's not going to draw more attention than the iPhone 3G's launch two days prior.

While you probably won't be the first person in the world to buy Apple's latest smartphone - that distinction may belong to this Kiwi - you can get your iPhone 3G fix over at the Boy Genius Report. That genius got his grubby hands on one and has an unboxing gallery here. It looks, well, like an iPhone with a black case and rounded edges. This particular phone wasn't activated, so there's no word on the firmware version or the zippy 3G-capabilities.

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