I just automatically think of a Palm Treo as having a camera since buying my first Treo, which was a Treo 650. It just seems natural to associate a Treo with a camera. I've never seen a Treo without a camera. Well, except for the Handspring Treo 300, 270, and 180 of course. But those Treos were around before I even knew about Palm. I discovered Palm late unfortunately.

I remember being surprised when I heard about Verizon having a Palm Treo 700p without a camera. Heck, who knew that you could get any newer model of Treo without a camera? Of course some people knew but I certainly wasn't one of them. And of course it makes perfect sense that Palm would make a cameraless Treo since many businesses don't want their employees coming to work with a device that has a built-in camera. Those companies don't want any corporate secrets leaked so cameras are a big "no-no".

I guess I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised again today to read about another Treo that is available with no camera; the Treo 680. According to Brighthand, there is a clear reference to the cameraless version on Palm's web site. I went looking around on that page and sure enough, near the bottom of the page, footnote #4 states, "Camera/camcorder not included on all models. Length of video created on device contingent upon available memory."

As Ed Hardy at Brighthand mentioned, Palm doesn't make it easy to order one of the Treo 680's without a camera. Evidently you have to call Palm by phone (800-881-7256) to order one.

I just recently broke down and bought an unlocked Copper Treo 680 off of ebay because I just "had" to have one. I'm selling my Graphite to a Pal of mine. I took a picture of the back of my Copper 680 and created a photo of it without the camera. Since I haven't seen a Treo 680 without a camera, this is just a guess as to what it would look like. But I would imagine it looking like this.

I love having a camera on my Treo and I use it all the time to take spur of the moment photos. My husband has my old Treo 650 and he takes pics and videos at work...((Gasp!)) and sends them to my Treo 680. I'm glad to know that Palm does make Treos without cameras though for people who aren't allowed to have a camera at their workplace. And for people who just couldn't care less about having a camera.