Hewlett-Packard accidentally confirmed the follow up to its latest line of smartphones, the iPAQ hw6500 series, last summer through a post on its European Web site. Not much else has been heard since.

The computer and printer giant recently resurrected the device through a document declaring conformity for the smartphone to European Union standards on its Web site. No longer called the iPAQ hw6700, HP's newest Pocket PC Phone is now named the hw6900 series: the hw6910 (without camera) and the hw6915 (with camera).

Here's what else we think we know about the hw6900:

It's very similar to the hw6500, but with some very important modifications. Not the least of which is moving from Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Phone Edition to Windows Mobile 5.0.

As with the previous iPAQ phone, the GSM/GPRS hw6900 delivers high-speed EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) cellular network support. It adds Wi-Fi wireless networking to the picture too. Not only that, Wi-Fi is supposed to be the speedier 802.11g variety and not 802.11b—far more common in handhelds.

The hw6900, like the hw6500, has a GPS receiver with TomTom Navigator software plus one free city map. Additional maps cost extra. Unlike the hw6500, the otherwise more feature-packed hw6900 won't have both Secure Digital (SD) card and miniSD card slots for more memory expansion. Instead, there's only support for miniSD cards.

Additional features of the hw6900 include 128 MB of ROM, 64 MB of RAM and a 416 MHz Intel XScale processor. The hw6900 measures 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches and weighs 5.8 ounces.

Because it runs the newest Windows Mobile platform, the hw6700 should have a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution display like Palm's new Treo 700w. Of course, the Pocket PC phone maintains the hw6500's QWERTY thumb-keyboard, with a backlight to enable users to view the keyboard in the dark.

The handset should hit the street later this quarter.