I received my Cingular Treo 680 review unit from Palm last night (thanks Palm!!), and wanted to post some first thoughts before a full review.

Head and Shoulders uses their famous quote in their ads: " Don't forget, you never get a second chance to make a first impression!". When I opened the box and held the 680 in my hand I knew Palm did just that, they've made a great first impression with the new Treo 680.

Upon opening the box I was wondering if there was going to be a noticeable difference between the Treo 680 and my Treo 700p. I mean they basically look like the same device, sans the antenna. When I picked up the 680 I could tell this wasn't a Treo 700p with it's antenna cut off. It feels awesome in the hand, thanks to it's much curvier, and slimmer body. It also seemed much lighter ( a great sign), but it was time to pop in the battery. I looked through the box and couldn't find the battery... did Palm forget to send me a battery? To my pleasant surprise I opened the battery cover and the battery was already in, and fully charged (nice touch). This Treo is is noticeably lighter, thinner, and more comfortable in the hand than my Treo 700p or Treo 700wx (great job Palm).

I wanted to beam a few of my favorite apps I use on my Treo 700p to see if they would work on the Treo 680. Most times you have to wait for software developers to update their applications to support a new Palm OS device, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway. I beamed LudusP, Agendus, Chatter, and I'm happy to report that my three favorite applications worked flawlessly. The Treo 680 is also noticeably faster than my Treo 700p, in terms of user interface. This could be because my Treo 680 only has a few applications installed opposed to my fully loaded Treo 700p, but I have a feeling on the 680 Palm has fixed some of the bugs in the Treo 700p OS . I then tried out Pocket Tunes to see if the 700p skipping bug has been fixed. I'm happy to say no skipping on the Treo 680. The Treo 680 is also VERY noticeably louder playing music than my Treo 700p or Treo 700wx .

While these are some of my first impressions of the of the new Cingular Treo 680, stay tuned for more thoughts in the coming days/weeks, and a full review.