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Earlier this week we revealed that European carrier-giant Vodafone is now taking pre-orders for Treo 750v, Palm, Inc.'s first Windows Mobile smartphone with 3G/UMTS technology for GSM markets. Announced in July, the device is expected to be officially introduced on September 12th.

Vodafone has since added the following statement:

Pre-orders available on new connections only. Upgrades will be available from launch on the 27th September through your local retail store, or business advisor team.

This strongly indicates Vodafone may release the 750v generally available in its initial launch markets, the U.K. at least, on that date.

As we said in our previous article, Vodafone also reveals the price for the new smartphone, which is 127.66 pounds (about $240) with a service plan.

The 750v will support Microsoft-enabled e-mail out of the box. This enabled through the software giant’s Windows Mobile Messaging and Security Feature Pack (also known as AKU2), which includes Direct Push Technology for messages, calendar, contacts, and tasks; native S/MIME support, certificate-based authentication to all Exchange data; and remote and local device wipe.

The rumor also says the new Windows 5.0 device has a miniSD expansion slot and a replaceable/rechargeable battery that is reportedly slimmer than the Treo 650's.

Other reported specs include a 312 MHz processor, 64 MB or RAM, 128 MB or RAM and a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution touch display. This is a lower resolution screen than the 320 x 320 type used in the earlier Palm OS Treo, but that's because Windows Mobile only supports the lower resolution.

For audio, there's a microphone, speaker, and a 2.5-mm headset jack.

From the leaked pictures, the new Treo seems to look a lot like earlier models except for the color of the casing, which is now blue, and the hue of the keys on the keyboard, which have been transposed. Where they're black on the Treo 700p, for example, they’re white now and vice versa. The Treo 750v also has Palm's 5-way directional pad and hardware buttons for input.

A 1.3-megapixel camera lets you take images up to 1280 x 1024 pixels in size.

Cingular will likely get the smartphone sometime later in the fall in the U.S., after Vodafone begins rolling it. In addition to the U.K., inaugural launch countries will include Germany, Spain, Italy and Netherlands, after which the operator plans to expand deployment to other regions.