Sprint Treo 700wx Release: Palm's Improved Windows Mobile Treo Arrives

In late August 2006, a set of leaked Sprint sales brochures gave Windows Mobile watchers their first real look at the Treo 700wx — the follow-up to Verizon's Treo 700w, and the device that was supposed to fix the one complaint that had dogged that earlier phone since January. Mobility Today covered the leak in a short post on August 28, 2006, then followed up when Sprint's launch actually happened on September 3. Here is what that original coverage said, what Sprint officially confirmed, and how the 700wx actually differed from the 700w it replaced.

What Was the Sprint Treo 700wx?

The Palm Treo 700wx was a Windows Mobile 5 smartphone Palm built for Sprint, launched on Sprint's network in September 2006. It combined a 240x240 touchscreen with a physical QWERTY keyboard below it, a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, an SD expansion slot, and Sprint's EV-DO data network under the Power Vision brand. On paper, and largely in practice, it was very similar hardware to the Treo 700w that Verizon had launched eight months earlier — the meaningful change was under the hood, in how much memory was actually available for running programs.

What Mobility Today Reported

Mobility Today's own coverage of the 700wx started as a rumor post, not a launch announcement. On August 28, 2006 — about a week before Sprint's actual launch — site writer David Ciccone published a piece titled \"Sprint Treo 700wx to be released Sept 3,\" built around leaked Sprint sales brochures and internal sales-kit materials that had surfaced online. The post is short and reads like a genuine scoop: it reproduces three leaked brochure images and reports the pricing directly from them, without independent confirmation from Sprint at that point.

What the article did not do is discuss RAM figures, EV-DO feature details, tethering, or a formal side-by-side comparison with the Verizon 700w — none of that appears in the piece's own text. Those topics show up in this retrospective because they're independently well documented elsewhere from 2006, not because the original post covered them, and this piece flags the difference rather than blurring it.

The GPS Controversy in the Comments

The most heated part of Mobility Today's August 28 post wasn't the pricing — it was whether the 700wx actually had GPS. One of the leaked brochures omitted any mention of it, leading Ciccone to write that GPS \"looks like it's out the door.\" Commenters immediately disagreed, some claiming a Sprint employee had confirmed a built-in GPS chip, others insisting there was \"NO TRUE GPS on this phone.\" A follow-up Mobility Today post on September 3, once the phone had actually shipped, resolved it: per Sprint's own site, the 700wx included \"an embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) chip necessary for utilizing the E911 emergency location service,\" not a consumer turn-by-turn navigation feature. That distinction — emergency-locate GPS versus mapping GPS — was a genuine point of confusion among buyers at the time, and it's worth keeping straight when reading period commentary about the phone's features.

Confirmed: Sprint Launched the 700wx on September 3, 2006

The September 3 date that Mobility Today's leaked brochures pointed to turned out to be accurate. Sprint officially launched the Treo 700wx on September 3, 2006, and Mobility Today published a same-day follow-up, \"Palm Treo 700wx released,\" linking out to early hands-on coverage from TreoCentral, CNET, PalmInfoCenter, and other outlets covering the launch. So the original August 28 piece really was reporting a rumor, based on leaked materials, roughly a week ahead of Sprint's formal confirmation — not a report on a launch that had already happened.

Sprint Launch Pricing

Sprint's official launch pricing for the Treo 700wx was $649.99 at full retail, or $499.99 with a new two-year service agreement. Mobility Today's August 28 leak reported essentially the same numbers ahead of the official confirmation — \"the unit will retail for $649 and if you sign up for 2 years it will cost ya $499.00\" — rounded to the dollar rather than stated to the cent, but directionally accurate. It's worth being precise that this was the Sprint launch pricing specifically; later Verizon and Alltel versions of the 700wx arrived on their own schedules with their own pricing, and shouldn't be assumed to match Sprint's September 2006 numbers.

Rebates and the Reader-Reported Lower Price

The comment thread on Mobility Today's August 28 post also floated a lower figure. One commenter claimed the real out-of-pocket price was \"actually $100 cheaper than your quotes,\" citing a $100 mail-in rebate stacked on top of the two-year contract price, for a final cost of $399. That claim came from a reader in the comments, not from Mobility Today's own reporting or from a cited Sprint source, so it should be read as an unverified community claim from the time rather than a confirmed rebate program. Sprint and other carriers did run mail-in rebate promotions on smartphones fairly routinely during this period, which makes the claim plausible, but this article isn't able to independently confirm a $399 net price for the 700wx at launch.

Treo 700wx Specs at a Glance

The table below summarizes the 700wx as launched on Sprint.

These figures describe the phone as launched on Sprint specifically; carrier variants that followed later shouldn't automatically be assumed to match every detail here.

Windows Mobile 5 on the 700wx

The 700wx ran Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition, the same general OS generation the Treo 700w had launched with back in January. Windows Mobile 5 brought persistent storage improvements over earlier Windows Mobile releases, along with productivity features aimed squarely at business users — Word, Excel, and PowerPoint viewers, and built-in support for connecting to corporate email. For Palm, building on Windows Mobile rather than its own Palm OS was itself a significant strategic shift, one the company had already made with the 700w, and the 700wx continued.

EV-DO and Sprint Power Vision

The 700wx connected to Sprint's EV-DO network, marketed to consumers under the Power Vision brand, giving it meaningfully faster data speeds than the older 1xRTT networks many earlier smartphones relied on. That mattered directly for how usable the phone was for email and web browsing on the go, and EV-DO connectivity was a genuine selling point for the device at launch, consistent with how Sprint and other carriers were positioning EV-DO phones generally during this period.

Touchscreen and Physical QWERTY Keyboard

The 700wx paired a 240x240 touchscreen with a physical QWERTY keyboard positioned below it — the classic Treo form factor, carried over largely unchanged from the 700w and earlier Palm OS Treos. The touchscreen handled navigation and on-screen taps, while the physical keyboard remained the primary way most owners typed email and text messages, reflecting how mainstream on-screen keyboards still weren't as the dominant text-input method in 2006.

Camera, Bluetooth, and SD Expansion

Rounding out the hardware, the 700wx included a 1.3-megapixel camera for casual snapshots, Bluetooth for wireless headsets and file transfer, and an SD card slot for expanding storage beyond the phone's built-in memory. None of these were headline features by 2006 standards, but together they rounded out a phone built to handle calls, email, casual photos, and expandable storage in one device.

Outlook and Exchange Support

As a Windows Mobile device, the 700wx was built to sync cleanly with Microsoft Outlook and connect to corporate Exchange servers for email, contacts, and calendar — a core part of its pitch to business buyers. That compatibility was one of the clearer practical advantages Windows Mobile phones held over Palm OS phones at the time, especially for users already standardized on Microsoft's email infrastructure.

Treo 700w vs Treo 700wx: What Actually Changed

It's easy to conflate these two phones, and important not to. The Treo 700w launched on Verizon in January 2006 as Palm's first Windows Mobile Treo. The Treo 700wx launched on Sprint eight months later, in September 2006, as a follow-up with very similar overall hardware — the same general touchscreen, keyboard layout, camera resolution, and processor class — but with meaningfully more usable memory for running programs, widely reported at the time as the device's central improvement.

The storage memory figure — the space used for files, contacts, and installed programs' data — stayed the same between the two phones at roughly 128MB total, with about 60MB actually available to the user after the OS and preloaded software. The figure that changed was program memory, the working RAM used to actually run applications while they're open, which doubled from 32MB on the 700w to 64MB on the 700wx.

Why More RAM Mattered

The Treo 700w had earned a real reputation for running low on program memory once a handful of applications were open at once, a complaint that showed up consistently in owner discussions through early and mid-2006. Doubling program memory to 64MB on the 700wx directly targeted that problem, letting the phone hold more running applications and background processes without the sluggishness 700w owners had grown used to. It's not a flashy headline spec, but it translated into a genuinely more usable phone day to day — and Mobility Today's own comment threads picked up on it directly, with one reader writing simply, \"More memory is exactly what this device needed!\"

Tethering: Technically Possible, Contractually Restricted

The 700wx could be used as an EV-DO modem for a laptop, connected over Bluetooth or USB with third-party software. Whether that was actually allowed depended on the specific Sprint plan attached to the phone: Sprint's Power Vision terms at the time restricted using a phone on an unlimited Vision plan as a modem unless the customer had specifically signed up for a phone-as-modem plan. So tethering was a real, working capability, just not one every owner was necessarily authorized to use under their own service agreement. This is general 2006 context, not something Mobility Today's original August 28 article discussed.

Sprint vs Verizon Availability

At launch, the 700wx was a Sprint-exclusive device, distinct from Verizon's earlier 700w. Verizon customers who wanted the extra RAM had to wait considerably longer — a Verizon-branded Treo 700wx didn't arrive until well into 2007, and Alltel carried its own version too. Anyone researching this phone secondhand should be careful about which carrier variant a given listing is actually describing, since availability windows and update schedules differed between Sprint's original release and the later versions.

Competition: BlackBerry and the Motorola Q

The 700wx launched into a market where BlackBerry devices remained the dominant choice for corporate email users, prized for their keyboard-first design and push-email reliability, while Motorola's Q — a slim, keyboard-equipped Windows Mobile device — competed for a broadly similar audience wanting a compact messaging-focused smartphone. The 700wx's pitch against both was its combination of touchscreen plus physical keyboard, EV-DO speed, and full Outlook/Exchange compatibility, aimed at buyers wanting more of a general-purpose pocket computer than either rival was built to be. That's not a claim it won that comparison for every buyer — BlackBerry in particular held onto much of the enterprise market for years afterward — just a note on where it positioned itself.

Legacy: Later Alltel and Verizon 700wx Versions

The Sprint 700wx wasn't the only version of the phone to reach the market. Alltel and, later, Verizon Wireless each released their own branded 700wx models, on their own separate timelines well after Sprint's September 2006 launch. Pricing on those later releases was set independently by each carrier and shouldn't be assumed to mirror Sprint's original $649.99/$499.99 launch pricing discussed above.

FAQ

When did Sprint release the Treo 700wx?

Sprint officially launched the Treo 700wx on September 3, 2006, confirming a date that had leaked via Sprint sales brochures roughly a week earlier.

Was Mobility Today's original 700wx article a rumor or a confirmed launch report?

It was a rumor report. Mobility Today's August 28, 2006 post was built around leaked Sprint brochures ahead of any official confirmation; the site published a separate follow-up on September 3, once the phone had actually shipped.

What was different about the Treo 700wx compared to the 700w?

The two phones shared very similar overall hardware, but the 700wx doubled the program memory available for running applications, widely reported at the time as its central practical improvement over the 700w.

What operating system did the 700wx run?

Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition.

Did the 700wx support EV-DO?

Yes, connecting to Sprint's EV-DO network, marketed under the Power Vision brand, for faster mobile data than older 1xRTT-only phones.

How much RAM did the Treo 700wx have?

64MB of program memory, double the 32MB on the Treo 700w. Storage memory stayed the same on both phones, at roughly 128MB total with about 60MB available to the user.

What is the difference between the Treo 700w and the Treo 700wx?

The 700w launched on Verizon in January 2006 as Palm's first Windows Mobile Treo. The 700wx launched on Sprint in September 2006 with similar overall hardware but significantly more usable program memory.

What did Sprint charge for the Treo 700wx at launch?

$649.99 at full retail, or $499.99 with a new two-year Sprint service agreement.

Was there a rebate that lowered the price further?

A commenter on Mobility Today's original coverage claimed a $100 mail-in rebate brought the net price to $399, but that claim came from a reader rather than from Mobility Today's own reporting or a cited Sprint source, so it isn't independently confirmed here.

Was the Treo 700wx available on Verizon?

Not at launch. The 700wx was a Sprint-exclusive device in September 2006; Verizon and Alltel released their own branded versions later, on separate timelines and pricing.

Did the Treo 700wx have real GPS navigation?

It included a GPS chip for E911 emergency location purposes, per Sprint's own product information, not a consumer turn-by-turn navigation feature. This was a genuine point of confusion among buyers at launch.

Could the Treo 700wx tether to a laptop?

Yes, technically, over Bluetooth or USB with supporting software, though Sprint's Power Vision terms at the time restricted modem use on unlimited plans without a specific phone-as-modem add-on.

The Sprint Treo 700wx wasn't a reinvention of the Treo formula — it was a fix, aimed squarely at the complaint that had followed the Treo 700w since its Verizon debut eight months earlier. Mobility Today caught wind of it a week early, through leaked brochures and a genuinely confused comment section arguing over GPS, before Sprint made it official on September 3, 2006. More than anything else, the extra RAM is what buyers and reviewers remembered.