Research group SquareTrade recently released the results of a massive mobile phone study. They tracked 15,000 individual handsets over their first year of use, and they found some large discrepancies in reliability. The iPhone malfunction rate sat at a comfortable 5.6%. The Blackberry (in its various incarnations) jumped to 11.9%. But it's all better than the Palm Treo, which malfunctioned 16.2% of the time within the first year.

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If Sprint's website is any indication, and it probably is, the Palm Treo Pro will be arriving to the service sometime in the near to far future. There's no formal page for the Europe-only handset at this time, but it's been spotted in a product drop-down menu (pictured here). If you've been waiting to upgrade your Palm on your Sprint contract, know that the currently available 800W is basically the same thing. Both handsets run Windows Mobile and feature a 320x320 screen, GPS and Wi-Fi. The Pro is just a bit thinner with a nicer battery. [Sprint via brighthand]

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Palm announced in their quarterly call that it had found an unnamed carrier to sell their new Treo Pro, but declined to mention who, specifically, would peddle the $US550 phone (at a potentially subsidised cost). WM Experts seem to think the carrier will be AT&T, which makes enough sense, since AT&T tends to get the big Palm GSM phones first in the US.

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All you outback Gizmodians out there longing for some smartphone love, your prayers have now been answered, with Telstra giving the Palm Treo Pro their blue tick of approval.

The blue tick is the stamp Telstra pops on phones that recommend the handset for rural coverage on the NextG network. The Treo Pro is the ninth handset in Telstra's stable to be awarded the classification, and the first smartphone with the label.

So now our farmers, bush-bashers and outback neighbours can enjoy the wonders of Windows Mobile 6.1 where they live. Welcome to the club, boys and girls. Hope you enjoy your stay.

[Telstra]

From what the guys in the US were saying, the Palm Treo Pro is a handy little phone. Sure, it runs Windows Mobile, but that's not all bad, right? Right?

Anyway, in case you were wondering what kind of Palm Treo Pro love you could expect in Australia (and I know that's exactly what you were thinking), know that the new smartphone is available exclusively through Telstra, complete with customised BigPond icons and everything.

It will hit shelves late September (which means you'll probably forget all about it by the time it's released) for an RRP of $929. "Whoa!" I hear you exclaim. "That's a bit pricey!". Well, it will also be available on a range of plans, including $0 up front on an $80 monthly contract for 2 years. As you'd expect, Telstra's data charges will still apply.

[Palm]

Most of us can size up the functionality of a phone from its spec sheet, but a phone's practicality, usability and enjoyability falls to a whole other series of factors. Form factor is a biggie. In this clip, you'll see the Treo Pro literally sized up against the smartphone competition (including the Palm Centro, Motorola Q9H, the BlackBerry Bold, the iPhone 3G, the HTC Touch Diamond and more. If you're at work and can't play the audio track, just turn it off and you'll still get most of the effect. [CrackBerry]UPDATE: Video after jump:

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Palm's Treo Pro was announced today, and we just got one for ourselves. The most noticeable thing about it is how small and light and shiny it is for a Palm phone. As a comparison, it sits between the Blackberry Curve and the iPhone in terms of size. It has a Centro-style keyboard, except bigger, the flush touchscreen and like the Palm 800w, the hardware seems more than adequate to run WIndows Mobile 6.1. Could this be the king of the WinMo phones? —pal check back soon for a full review. [Palm@Giz]

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Palm is in a tough place right now, with a staid reputation, a decade-old OS and a line of phones that are all, well, sort of boring. The New York Times ran a piece today charting Palm's revitalisation plans, which are being carried out under the guidance of CEO Ed Colligan and Apple vet Jon Rubinstein, and they aren't altogether inspiring. Sure, there's always Palm OS 2, but this piece seems to imply (not surprisingly) that we might not see that until the middle of next year. And from the looks of it, Palm's troubles may run deeper than that.

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This week's best kept secret just got official: The Palm Treo Pro is a Centro-sized Windows Mobile 6.1 phone (whither Palm OS?) with tri-band 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS with a 320x320 touchscreen, exactly like the recent Treo 800w. Powering the show is a 400MHz processor and 128MB of RAM. And yep, the proprietary Palm connector is ditched for micro-USB. Hurray for standards. They're selling it unlocked through the online store for US$549 in the fall. [Palm]

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Slashgear's just found a video of the upcoming Treo Pro, a device that physically looks like the Centro, but runs the touchscreen version of Windows Mobile. The video shows you pretty much what you need to know about how big the phone is in your hand (not too big) but if you want to see it compared to some other things, there were the photos before and also some new photos over at a Chinese site. With all these leaks, the Treo Pro pretty much DEMANDS to be released soon. [Treo Pro via Slashgear]

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