Handspring made the biggest splash of the year in the smartphone market with its Treo line of communicators, which quickly became the most visible PDA/Phone hybrid, striking a good balance between PDA functionality and phone capabilities. By years end, when competition in the smartphone category heated up considerably, Handspring had released three versions of the Treo (the 180, 270 and 300) and inked deals with several mobile carriers, including Sprint, T-Mobile, and Cingular, to offer the Treo with their phone and data services.

Like the Treo 180 ($99 with service activation), the Treo 270 ($499 with service activation) integrates a mobile phone, wireless applications like email and Internet browsing, and a Palm OS 3.52 organizer. Unlike the monochrome Treo 180, the 4,000 color Treo 270's built-in QWERTY keyboard is backlit, a major advantage over the earlier model. The company also said the color Treo 270's rechargeable lithium ion battery surprisingly offers improved battery life (up to three hours of talk time and 150 hours of standby time compared to 2.5 hours of talk time and 60 hours of standby time) over the grayscale Treo 180 models. Unlike the Graffiti-based Treo 180g, there are no plans for a version of the Treo 270 without a keyboard. Both Treo models weigh in at a mere 5.4 ounces, feature a 33MHz Motorola Dragonball processor and 16MB of RAM. Cingular and T Mobile offer the Treos as GSM 900/1900 MHz world phones, while T Mobile adds GPRS support on its network.

Treo 270

The Treo 300 communicator is Handspring's smartphone for the PCS Free & Clear plan from Sprint, which is faster than the plans offered for the GSM/GPRS Treo 270. The Treo 300 otherwise has specs that are very similar to the Treo 270. The Treo 300 is a little larger than the other models, 4.4 x 2.8 x .82-inches compared to 4.2 x 2.8 x .82-inches and runs about $499 with service activation from Sprint.

Treo 300