It has been 4 months since palmOne released the Treo 650 to thousands of anxious Sprint PCS subscribers. During that time the phone has seen its fair share of good and bad press, a number of hacks have been released, customers have received free palmOne 128MB SD cards and no one has been able to substantially corroborate any news on when the GSM version will ship.

To me the Treo 650 is the ultimate all in one device. Sure, it’s lacking some of the features found in similar (and less expensive) phones but nonetheless it still is proving to be an excellent upgrade to the Treo 600. While I’m sure I can live without a 1.3Mp camera (the 650 has a VGA resolution of 640×480), Bluetooth 2.0 (novel but shipping in some newer phones), built-in WiFi (common amongst the Windows Mobile/PocketPC crowd), or a higher colour depth screen (the 650 sports 65,536 while other devices are up in the 211,000 range), I can’t really say for sure since I don’t have one. Yet.

Personally, my opinion is that palmOne has been dragging their feet on this. I’m well aware that Sprint had much to do with the R&D on the Treo as well as the first launch, but the GSM market is significantly larger than the installed CDMA base in the United States. The revenue alone could have offset whatever costs Sprint pumped in. Suffice to say I want this phone. And I want it badly. I rarely let my lust for technology linger on this long, and I’m sad to say I’m starting to fall out of love with the Treo 650.

My Sony Ericsson P900 is going through its death throes, and my Motorola RAZR V3, minus the good looks, is about as useless as every other phone they make. I need a replacement—quickly.

The only replacement I see for the Treo 650 that satisfies my requirements is the forthcoming Benq P50 smartphone. With integrated Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, a 1.3Mp digital camera, a 200K colour screen, and an ample 64MB of memory, it seems a perfect fit. The only downside: it runs Windows Mobile 2003 Phone Edition. Of course, the even bigger downside is that this phone was spotted—first—at CES almost two years ago. It still hasn’t shipped.

I have pre-orders for both models standing with the terrific folks at Expansys. At this point in time, the first phone to arrive in their stock and be available for shipment will win my order (and hopefully not be returned). With Cingular rumoured to launch the 650 to consumers this week, the 650 may come first. On the other hand, Expansys claimed to be receiving stock of the P50 by ‘end of month’. They have one day left to meet their deadline. We’ll see what happens.