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Cingular Wireless is offering a little less than $200 with a two-year contract and an unlimited Cingular PDA Connect data plan, which goes for $44.99 per month.

Palm is offer an unlocked edition of the Treo 680 directly from its Web site for $400. It'll be available at Palm's retail stores on December 1st. This unlocked version can be used with any GSM carrier, T-Mobile for example: Just pop in your SIM card and your ready to go.

Cingular is shipping the Treo 680 in sliver. Those interested in the unlocked edition may also purchase the device in red, orange, and white.

As with the Treo 750, the Palm OS Treo 680 loses the Treo's signature external antenna, making it decidedly sleeker-looking than the Treo 650, which it replaces. Its GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900) type for global compatibility.

The Treo 680 also sports a VGA camera, a 320 x 320 pixel resolution touch screen, 64 MB of user-available memory, a 312 MHz Intel PXA270 processor, and Bluetooth. Its 1200 mAH lithium-ion battery is supposed to last up to 4 hours talk and 300 hours standby time.

The device measures 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.8 inches and 5.28 ounces and is the smallest Treo yet.

Palm has upgraded the user interface and introduced a new simplified five tab phone application with the Treo 680. In addition, the Address Book and contacts are now built directly into the phone application.

DataViz Documents To Go is bundled for Microsoft Office document viewing and editing, the VersaMail e-mail application has been upgraded, and Pocket Tunes (upgradeable for DRM protected content) will plays music files.

Google Maps delivers directions, local search, moveable/scalable maps, location satellite imagery and live traffic updates. And a threaded chat application tracks SMS conversations as if they were an instant messaging exchange, so you can view everything in one place. Palm has also updated the Web browser for faster performance and more accurate delivery of content, the company said.

The Treo 680 will come with a 30-day free trial of the Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go service and Yahoo! Music For Mobile.

In addition to Cingular, Palm expects 19 more international carriers will pick up the Treo 680 by June of next year.