The news is here.
Hate to be the bearer of such bad news, but I noticed nobody is talking about it here and I wanted to make sure everyone knew.
Without a doubt, this proves that Sprint is not happy with the 800w. While they usually continue to sell older models of Palm devices for much longer, they are pulling the 800w after 6 months.
(Perhaps they'll sell the 800w till their current supply runs out or perhaps they'll pull it the very moment they release the Treo Pro. Either way, they're done with the 800w. They won't continue to order more of it from Palm for resale. Meaning the ONLY carrier of the 800w is backing away from it.) With other brands, such as HTC's they're still selling the Mogul although the Touch Pro is a newer model that they also sell. They didn't "replace" the Mogul with the Touch Pro and have continued selling both. Never has a Palm device been "replaced" by Sprint so quickly. Perhaps this is the fastest smart phone "replacement" ever?
The 800w obviously is not a hot seller, many complaints about defects and fails to offer the advertised autonomous/stand alone GPS. It only does aGPS and the GPS radio won't start without a compatible CDMA signal.
This move by Sprint means, 3rd party accessory makers won't be thinking much about the 800w, because it only ran with one carrier for a VERY short period of time and that carrier is dumping it. We 800w owners won't hold any advantages that come with owning a device that is still actually being heavily marketed by a major carrier. In fact, Sprint never
really marketed the 800w heavily. They didn't even include it in their Christmas promotion that was sent out about a month ago. It shows Sprint never really was pleased with the 800w.
We're basically stuck with a device that does not have many owners and will never have many owners, it's like the Pontiac Fiero of smart phones. Nobody is going to offer it much in the way of support and new add ons. I even suspect IF Palm makes a ROM update for it, that it might be slim compared to what would come in a ROM update for a device with more owners and making Palm more money. Nobody is really going to cater to a device that is less used and only ran with a carrier for 6 months. If the 800w had a short life with a carrier, but had an unlocked version it would still get more sales and more attention, but the Treo 800w will have 6 months with 1 carrier and be let go. I mean of course our devices will still work on Sprint's network, but Sprint's not going to keep selling it and it will be like an old has been.
Knowing the Treo Pro was coming to Sprint didn't bother me at all, but knowing Sprint will stop selling the 800w is a totally different story. With all that has gone on with the 800w, I can't say I'd get the 800w if I could do it all over again.
