Handspring's Treo 90 is a new breed of device for the company. It is the first Handspring organiser born outside the company's Visor line of handhelds and also the first organiser to shed the company's Springboard expansion slot. Instead, the Treo 90 includes a Secure Digital expansion slot.
In terms of looks and design, the Treo 90 is almost identical to the Treo 180 and 270, sans antenna. Weighing just 113 grams, it is the lightest PDA from Handspring, lighter even than the Visor Edge.
In the US, which is still Handspring's primary market, the Treo 90 has been received with greater enthusiasm than the GPRS-enabled Treo 270 because there's a bigger organiser market than an all-in-one devices market and also because it features an SD expansion slot and a thumb keyboard.
Quite incredibly, the thumb keyboard has been singled out by US press reviews as the biggest selling point. One report on CNet quoted an analyst saying: 'There is a huge market of Palm OS devotees who would buy a product because it has a built-in keyboard. That's one thing no Palm has had. BlackBerry has had a keyboard for how long?'
The apparent demand for a Palm PDA with a thumb keyboard in North America has me baffled. Why is a tiny keypad such a big deal? And why would real Palm OS devotees prefer a keyboard for input since the Graffiti handwriting recognition software is very much part of the Palm OS product?
Handspring officials explained to me last week that there are a lot of people out there who do not like Graffiti.