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The Internet rumor mill suggests that Treo 750 demo units are making an appearance behind the scenes at Cingular Wireless stores nationwide.

A few weeks ago, Palm said the smartphone would be delayed due to certification issues from it originally expected shipping timeframe of this month. December would have been an ideal time to launch the 750 - just as Cingular did with its sister model, the Palm OS Treo 680 - due to people’s penchant for playing fast and loose with their wallets during the holiday buying season.

Palm said in November it didn't expect the 750 would be available until the company's third fiscal quarter, sometime in January, because of the problems it has encountered with the smartphone. It has been successfully shipping the 750 in Europe, through carrier-giant Vodafone, since September, however.

The 750 snag caused the company to lower guidance for its current quarter to between $390 million to $395 million, down from the $430 million the handheld-maker set forth in September. Palm expects to post Q2 earnings this week.

With demo units making their way to Cingular sales representatives, perhaps this indicates Palm will launch its first Windows Mobile smartphone for GSM operators in the U.S. during its current quarter after all - maybe even before Christmas? This would certainly be a boon to the company.

Or, perhaps, the demo units don't indicate anything significant. This would mean the 750 delay is still in effect. And Palm won't be able to take advantage of the holiday shopping season for this eagerly-waited smartphone after all.

Either way, when the 750 does ship here, users will find a smartphone that is just as, if not more advanced, than Palm's Windows Mobile Treos - the 700w and 700wx - available from CDMA carriers Sprint, Verizon and Alltel.

There's every reason to believe the Cingular edition of the 750 will feature the same basic specs as Vodafone's edition, called the 750v. The Treo 750 is a quad-band world phone that weighs 5.4 ounces (154 grams) and measures 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.87 inches (111 x 58 x 22 millimeters). Like the 680, it nixes the Treo external antenna for an internal.

It runs on Windows Mobile 5.0, a 300 MHz Samsung processor, and 128 MB of nonvolatile flash memory (60 MB user available). There's a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution touch display that supports over 65,000 colors.

A 1.3-megapixel camera for picture and video lets you take images up to 1280 x 1024 pixels in size with a 2x digital zoom. For audio, there's a microphone, speaker, a 2.5-mm headset jack, and Bluetooth with support for stereo headsets. There's also a miniSD expansion slot and a replaceable/rechargeable 1200 mAH lithium-ion battery that Palm says offers 4.5 hours of talk over a GSM connection and 10 days standby time.

Palm ships the 750v ships with Microsoft's Messaging and Security Feature Pack (also known as AKU2), which includes Direct Push and data access to Exchange server. This delivers push e-mail, calendar entries, contacts, and tasks; native S/MIME support, certificate-based authentication to all Exchange data; and remote and local device wipe.

As with previous Windows Mobile Treos, the 750v includes enhancements exclusively added by Palm and not available to other devices running Microsoft's wireless platform. These would include Today Screen improvements, such as the ability to "dial by name" with a few keystrokes on the keyboard, perform a web search directly from the Today Screen, and one-touch dialing with personalized photo speed dials.