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Only a day after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave a thumbs up to Palm's first Windows Mobile smartphone for GSM markets, the Treo 750, the government watchdog has given the okay to the Palm OS-run Treo 680, the company's new smartphone for the masses.

FCC approval is a key (and essential) hurdle all wireless devices must earn before entering the U.S. market. Now Cingular Wireless, the first carrier expected to offer the Treo 680, can release it here at anytime. Don't be surprised if the operator announces the smartphone as soon as next week.

One leaked Cingular document said the Treo 680 will go for $425 a la carte, $350 with a year commitment, and $350 with a two-year contract. Throw in an unlimited a data plan on top of this last deal and the price may drop to only $175: A sample print advertisement listed the Treo 680's price as $200, however.

As with the Treo 750, the Palm OS Treo 680 loses the Treo's signature external antenna, making it decidedly sleeker-looking than the Treo 650, which it replaces. Its GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900) type for global compatibility.

The Treo 680 also sports a VGA camera, a 320 x 320 pixel resolution touch screen, 64 MB of user-available memory, a 312 MHz Intel PXA270 processor, and Bluetooth. Its 1200 mAH lithium-ion battery is supposed to last up to 4 hours talk and 300 hours standby time.

At 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.8 inches and 5.28 ounces, the Treo 680 - which will ship in Graphite, Crimson, Arctic, and Copper (known to most folks as silver, red, white and orange) - is the smallest Treo yet.

Palm has upgraded the user interface and introduced a new simplified five tab phone application with the Treo 680. In addition, the Address Book and contacts are now built directly into the phone application.

DataViz Documents To Go is bundled for Microsoft Office document viewing and editing, the VersaMail e-mail application has been upgraded, and Pocket Tunes (upgradeable for DRM protected content) will plays music files.

Google Maps delivers directions, local search, moveable/scalable maps, location satellite imagery and live traffic updates. And a threaded chat application tracks SMS conversations as if they were an instant messaging exchange, so you can view everything in one place. Palm has also updated the Web browser for faster performance and more accurate delivery of content, the company said.

In addition to Cingular, Palm expects 19 more international carriers will pick up the Treo 680 by June of next year.

More on Cingular Smartphones
Cingular has made a major push to greatly expand its smartphone lineup of late. The new Treos and just announced 8525 Pocket PC Phone join other recent additions to the wireless operator's stable, including HP's iPAQ hw6920 Mobile Messenger, Nokia's E62 and the Cingular 3125 (also known as the HTC Star Trek). It is also expected Cingular will add RIM's new Pearl and, possibly, a couple of other Nokia smartphones in the near future.

Most of these devices are part of a trend towards lower-cost advanced handset models that go for $200 or less compared to the several hundreds of dollars people used to have to pay for smartphone.

While smartphones only accounted for about 2.5 percent of cell phones shipped last quarter, according to the NDP Group, the numbers are growing rapidly. For example, this year the number of smartphones sold is expected to grow to 80 million compared to 49 million the year before, reports Gartner.

Carriers like smartphones especially because users of these devices are likelier to sign up for and use, often expensive, data plans to access the Web, send and receive e-mail, and leverage other content services. This has the potential to raise the average revenue per user (ARPU) considerably higher for smartphone owners than users of everyday feature phones.

With voice revenues dropping, the importance of data services to operators has grown considerably over the last couple of years. Greatly subsidizing smartphones, one way to bring costs down, enable consumers to obtain them for less; therefore placing the power of these advanced handsets within reach of more people.