It will come as little surprise to many of you that I pretty much sleep with my Handspring/Palm Treo, having gone through many versions including the 300, 600, and most recently, the 650. Well, I’m leaving all that behind. After having the thing cease to accept or send SMS messages (critical for 911 pages from work), and absolute refusal to sync with my office PC despite soft, hard and other resets – not to mention the email client I had to leave running at work 24/7 to push email to the device which would constantly die and need to be restarted – usually when I was on an extended business trip – I’d had enough. I am now the proud papa of a new Verizon XV6700, their version of the HTC/Audiovox Windows Mobile Smartphone. The most compelling features? Enterprise support at Turner – they have enabled mobile ActiveSync from our Exchange web email access application, so I can get mail, calendar, tasks and my contacts on this device without running something on a desktop client. Pure Joy, that. The device is much faster than my old Treo, the screen is huge, and the near-3G speeds from Verizon’s EV-DO network is a pleasure for web use. And it includes built-in Wi-Fi support, so when I am near a hotspot, I can get even faster performance. Now if the battery lasted longer than about eight hours of typical use, I’d be much happier – I’m looking at the extended life battery right now as my first accessory. I’m hoping that that soon-to-be-in-my-hands MacBook Pro with the Core 2 Duo ‘inside’ as Intel likes to say will make a nice companion for this new phone – courtesy of Boot Camp and Parallels. Woohoo!