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The new Palm Treo 755p, a CDMA cellphone being introduced by Telus Mobility today, is a bit of a contradiction. While it presents itself as nothing special in design and sports the familiar old Palm Operating System interface, it is, however, a 3G device loaded with features: Telephone, Web browser, e-mail client, personal information manager, video and still camera.

Similarly, Palm's operating system (now called Garnet 5.4.9) is also ambivalent in identity. When it powers on, it reports that it's "Access Powered," a reference to the Taiwanese company that bought the Palm OS. Yet the OS is very much like the old Palm, and the device is being promoted as attractive to people who love Palm's traditional look and feel.

But the traditional look and feel are becoming a little tired, and in need of a makeover. That might come when Access revises the operating system to Linux, though it hasn't said much about it recently, while Palm is talking about the same thing.

Rather chunky, the Treo 755p fits nicely in the hand, is easy to operate with one hand, has some nice bonus software (voice-activated phoning, games, Google Maps) and has a push e-mail client (VersaMail), which works with any Microsoft Exchange mail server that has been configured to allow such communication.

The Treo 755p, which replaces the Treo 700p, keeps the familiar touch screen, which can be operated by the stylus or a fingernail. Or, for that matter, by your ear — if you're not careful while on a phone call, an earlobe, hearing aid or earring might bump up against the screen and put the caller on hold while you try to figure out what went wrong.

The unit is chunky for two reasons — it has subsumed the old antenna knob into its body, and it has a slightly larger battery to power all its new features (last year's Treo 680 snacked insatiably on battery power). Although this has made the 755p fatter, it doesn't make it any more awkward, despite efforts by both Palm and Palm's competitors to promote thinness as noisily as Richard Simmons.

In terms of data, the Treo 755p works on the high-speed EV-DO network, which is about as fast as one can get right now, and boasts a browser called Blazer that is more like the ones usually found on desktop computers. In this latter aspect, Palm perhaps shouldn't have bothered. Trying to download a complex page can be a frustrating experience — you can't read it until the page has completely downloaded. The text keeps jumping up and down as pictures and graphics load; it does not seem to make room for the graphics before filling them in. (It is possible to turn the graphics off, but that is problematic because many pages use graphics as navigation tools.)

One impressive feature is an easy switch at the top of the unit to mute the cellphone; another is a key dedicated to the period — a wonderful idea for the millions of Blackberry users to whom a period is two keystrokes. Annoyances include the inexplicable placement of the headset jack at the bottom of the unit, and domed keys on the keyboard (some people must use their fingernails on the closely spaced keys, and their fingernails tend to slip off the domed surface).

Compared to previous Palm smartphones, this one has much to recommend it. But without wanting to start a catfight among their various fans, it's safe to say it won't be very impressive to owners of RIM's Blackberry, especially the Blackberry Pearl, which also sports a centralized navigator just under the screen.

But that's not the market Palm is aiming for. The company is working on the premise that Blackberrys are not chosen by their users as much as deployed to them by employers; Palm's user base is, however, self-selected by loyalists who form a group large enough to justify the company's marketing concept.

For the technically minded, the Treo 755p is based on a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor, features a 320-by-320-pixel touch screen display, uses 128 MB RAM with 62.8 available to users, includes a miniSD card slot on the side, which can add up to 4 GB of memory for such things as videos and MP3s, a docking station, stereo headphones for music (those awful ear buds), dual-band CDMA with EV-DO Rev. 0, Bluetooth 1.2, a 1.3 megapixel camera and video recorder and a full QWERTY keyboard with backlighting.

Like many tech gadgets these days, selecting a 3G cellphone has become largely a matter of taste. The Treo 755p is a worthy contender among all others, but its major selling point will remain the familiarity of its interface, which is important to people who have neither the time nor the desire to learn a new system.