Like Bigfoot or Nessie, palmOne's follow-up to the mid-range Tungsten E—the most popular handheld in the United States—has been long been rumored, but never seen. In fact, the industry was surprised when the mobile device company didn't release a sequel when it unveiled the high-end Tungsten T5 in the Fall.

Thanks to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week, the Tungsten E2 no longer resides in the land of mythical creatures. That's because the government agency, as it is prone to do, leaked photographs and pictures of the handheld on its website. All wireless devices released in the U.S. must gain FCC thumbs up first.

As quick as the information went up, however, the FCC took it down. Not before Dave's PDA Place gathered some data and pictures about the eagerly anticipated PDA.

Here's what we know:

From the pictures, the Tungsten E2 looks the same as its predecessor. It will feature a display at the same 320 x 320 pixel resolution as the earlier model, but the screen will support 18-bit rather than 16-bit color—a definite improvement and better than most other handhelds.

It appears to have the same connector as palmOne's most recent handhelds, the Tungsten T5 PDA and Treo 650 smartphone. Although the FCC documents didn't specify what type of RAM the Tungsten E2 would implement, we expect palmOne would stick with the non-volatile memory—to let content survive an accidental power drain—used in these other two models.

The device will add support for Bluetooth specification 1.1, which means you can use the device as part of a personal area network—connecting to PCs, cell phones and smartphones for wireless e-mail and Internet access, other PDAs, and printers—more reliably.

Although the Tungsten E2 appears to include a Secure Digital slot, it isn't clear whether palmOne will make the device compatible with its Wi-Fi SD card. We don't see why not though.

We'll report more details about the Tungsten E2, such as the type and speed of the processor, amount of memory, operating system (Palm OS Garnet or Cobalt), and price when the information becomes available.

Tungsten E
When the Tungsten E is eventually released, it'll have a lot to live up to. Shipped 14 months ago, the Tungsten E—targeted at budget-conscious professionals and consumers—has been remarkably successful, selling 1.5 million units since its debut.

Also, according to research firm The NPD Group, the Tungsten E accounted for 21 percent of all U.S. handheld sales in its first year on the market. That's at a time when palmOne otherwise saw its market share drop considerably and the PDA market as a whole stalled after several years of extraordinary growth.