Rumor has it that Cingular will likely get a version of the 750v sometime after Vodafone starts rolling it out.

The 750v is the first of two new models Palm president & CEO Ed Colligan promised last week after the company disclosed disappointing earnings due to shipping lower volumes of Treos than expected. The second smartphone will supposedly cost half as much, $200, as a Treo usually goes for at launch.

Today, Colligan said, "The new Treo 750v smartphone - made available first in Europe - on the Vodafone 3G/UMTS network is Palm's latest salvo to reach more customers in more regions with an ever-expanding line of compelling Treo smartphones.”

The quad-band 750v is Palm's sleekest looking and compact model yet - it weighs 5.4 ounces (154 grams) and measures 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.87 inches (111 x 58 x 22 millimeters) - mostly because the new smartphone looses the signature Treo antenna. Something Europeans, in particular, weren't very fond of.

The color of the casing has also changed, to a dark bluish, and the hue of the keys on the backlit QWERTY thumb-keyboard have been transposed. So where they where once black - on the Treo 700p, for example - they’re white and vice versa.

Palm's new smartphone still has the Treo's 5-way directional pad and hardware buttons for input.

The 750v runs on Windows Mobile 5.0, 300 MHz Samsung processor, and 128MB 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. This is a lower resolution screen than the 320 x 320 type used in Palm OS Treos, but that's because Windows Mobile only handles that lower resolution (or multiples thereof) in a square display.

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 and Vodafone will ship the 750v with Microsoft's Messaging and Security Feature Pack (also known as AKU2), which includes Direct Push and data access to Exchange server, for free out of the box. 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. The new Treo also supports Vodafone Business Email for remote access to enterprise and Internet-based e-mail accounts.

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.

Although Palm and Vodafone didn't discuss pricing or availability, the carrier is taking pre-orders on new connections at its U.K. Web site. Vodafone lists the price as 127.66 pounds (about $240) with a service plan.

It goes on to say that upgrades will be available on October 2nd through stores, when the Treo 750v launches.

Mark Bercow, Palm's senior VP of business development told PDAStreet the Treo 750v, created specifically Vodafone, was designed in part at Palm's European Engineering Centre in Dublin, Ireland. Itself opened a year ago as part of the company’s more aggressive move into Europe.

At the center, Palm creates custom Treo applications and works on UMTS/HSDPA 3G radio technology with the needs of European mobile operators in mind. Palm said it believed mobile solutions were best delivered with targeted R&D activities and close collaboration with the continent’s carriers at the center's launch; hence its location.

Specific tasks of the center include choosing and developing core, leading-edge technologies, to help Palm accelerate the delivery of next-generation smartphones to European operators and their customers; supporting the mobile operators in their certification processes and helping field-qualification teams; implementing radio technology and mobile operator-specific services and applications; and focusing on quality assurance across the European networks and infrastructures.