People who know us know we’re gadget fiends. We used Newtons, for crying out loud, before Apple fucked ’em up by ignoring what Palm saw so clearly: small and connected and cheap will win, not big and unsyncable and expensive. The final Newts cost a grand, but wouldn’t sync with our desktop, and were nearly as big as the laptop we had at the time, all while Palms were $299, the size of a pack of smokes, and flawlessly syncable.

Anyway, so Palm ruled for a while. The original Treos were pretty fantastic, and showed what might ultimately happen in the whole PDA-phone convergence space. But for some reason, about 4 years ago, they stopped doing anything new or interesting; every product in their lineup now is a weak riff on the original 600, and that sucks. Heathen Central has even migrated off their venerable 650 to a — gasp — Windows Mobile device; it was only about a buck more than the Treo, but includes vastly greater capabilities (and, as noted at the time, outperforms the iPhone as well).

So, Palm, what the fuck? Fortunately, we’re not the only ones to notice this slackass behavior by Hawkins and company: Engadget lays it out for them quite nicely.

(N.B. the first suggestion under “Other Stuff.”)