A few days ago, Sprint removed the Treo 755p from its Web site, leading to much speculation that the days were numbered for the carrier's top-of-the-line Palm OS smartphone. It turns out rumors of the Treo's demise were premature.

Brighthand's received word from Sprint that the removal of the Treo 755p is short-term, due to a "temporary outage of inventory." Sprint also reiterated its commitment to offering Palm products, which today also include the hot-selling Centro and Windows Mobile-run Treo 700wx, in addition to offering new Palm smartphones throughout the rest of the year.

While Alltel and Verizon also sell the Treo 755p in the U.S., Sprint did so first, launching the smartphone a year ago next month. Available in burgundy and blue, the Treo 755p goes for $579 without a contract, but can be had for as low as $199.99 with one.

The 755p was 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. There's also Google Maps for directions, local searches, moveable/scalable maps, satellite imagery, and traffic updates.

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

The 755p supports Sprint TV, which features more than 50 channels of live and on-demand content, including CNN, FOX, ESPN, The Weather Channel, MTV, E! and The Cartoon Network. Of course, there's an MP3 and video player as well as Palm's standard array of enhanced PIM applications.

It replaced the aging Treo 700p as the Palm's highest-end Palm OS Garnet (now simply called Garnet) Treo. As with other recent Palm smartphones, the 755p lost earlier model's external antenna for an internal type.

It’s also got a QWERTY thumb-keyboard and a high-resolution 320 x 320 pixel resolution touch display, and is 3G-enabled through support for CDMA operators' EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized network) cellular-wireless networks.

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.