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An anonymous tipster informed Engadget yesterday that Palm's Treo 755p finally passed Verizon Wireless testing regimen and is ready to hit store shelves. Palm's highest-end Palm OS smartphone for CDMA/EV-DO carriers has been available from Verizon competitor Sprint for seven months already.

Today, The Boy Genius Report revealed the 755p should hit Verizon's Web site on December 17th, before reaching store shelves a couple of weeks later, on January 7th.

Reportedly, Verizon sell the 755p for $499.99 with a two-year agreement. Sprint introduced this very same smartphone for $280 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate half a year ago. Maybe Verizon's got a rebate or two up its sleeve to help defray the cost of the 755p some more for its customers as well

As with the Treo 680 and Treo 750 for GSM operators (available from AT&T in the U.S.), the 755p loses earlier models' external antenna for an internal type. It also has a QWERTY thumb-keyboard and a high-resolution 320 x 320 pixel resolution touch display.

The smartphone is 3G-enabled through support for CDMA operators' EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized network) cellular-wireless networks. This high-speed technology carries content - video, e-mail, pictures, etc. - at average rates of 400 to 700 kilobits per second.

Specifications for the 755p include a 312 MHz XScale processor, 128MB of non-volatile RAM (60 MB user available), a miniSD memory card slot for up to 4 GB of additional storage, a 1.3 megapixel camera for picture and video, a 1600mAh Li-Ion battery, and Bluetooth.

You may use the 755p as a modem for a laptop to connect to the Internet or enterprise through a wireless Bluetooth or wired USB connection. e.

The 755p is Palm's first Palm OS Treo to offer built-in e-mail support for Microsoft's Direct Push technology through the device's VersaMail application.

Google Maps for directions, local searches, moveable/scalable maps, satellite imagery, and traffic updates is built right into the 755p's ROM.

Palm also bundles its unique threaded SMS/MMS application, which allows you to view messages in a single chat view. Surf the Web through the Netfront browser from ACCESS, and read/edit native Microsoft Office and PDF files through DataViz's Documents To Go Version 8.