A Tale of Two (Windows) Smartphones?

One of the rumors that resurfaced this past week was a Windows Mobile version of the Palm Treo. Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research analyzes the potential impact if this actually comes to pass. Gartenberg, who has a source that claims the rumor is accurate, writes:

It would be a huge blow to Palmsource. There's probably no worse nightmare than their flagship licensee introducing a Windows based device, even if they still continue to offer Palm based devices. This event, if it actually happens, would mark a powerful turning point for Microsoft, more from a psychological perspective than a marketshare perspective, but that's the key to getting momentum going for the longer haul.

In a separate posting, Gartenberg gives his initial thoughts on my latest gadget of affection, the Samsung i730. In a nutshell, he claims the "device shows how far state of the art has come in just one year." WiFi plus Verizon's EV-DO network and other nice touches makes a heady combination, but battery life is poor. Gartenberg thinks "the unit works too well," which unfortunately highlights the battery problem even more:

With the EV-DO enabled and all the functionality, you're tempted to use the device a lot during the day and that just doesn't work well with battery life. If you can live with the battery life or don't mind carrying a spare and want the most full featured smartphone on the market today, this is the device for you.

So the big question is, do you carry an extra battle and settle for the power deficiency or wait until the next great device hits the market? The problem of being a gadget geek is that the quest for the perfect device never ends...