Possible Samsung NVIDIA Tegra chipped phone

NVIDIA's Tegra chip has shown itself to be quite a gem, especially in the field of augmented reality zombie destruction. Looks like Samsung agrees with that sentiment, and has confirmed that it's currently developing a smartphone with the powerful processor. That's not a lot to go on, but knowing the capabilities of the CPU, we're excited. It's probably safe to assume an AMOLED touchscreen is a given, as well as a plethora of TouchWiz widgets, but whether or not the phone goes with Windows Mobile or Android is still a mystery. A recent rumor suggested one of the "top five" smartphone makers would be releasing a $199 GSM-based Tegra device by year's end -- no indication if these two reports are one in the same, but we'd love to see what Sammy has in store sooner rather than later.

Samsung Omnia II

This rumor is for everyone out there who nearly went insane from all of yesterday’s WWDC coverage. Word is that what you’re looking at above is Samsung’s upcoming GT-i8000 aka Omnia II. Assuming the picture is the real deal and the specs are right, we’re hearing that the Omnia II will come with a 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA resistive touchscreen display, 8.1 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and VGA video recording at 30 fps, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and HSDPA connectivity, miniUSB, 150MB of internal memory and a 1500 mAh battery. There is also a rumor that the Omnia II will run custom take on TouchWiz above Windows Mobile 6.1, which while not as polished as TouchFLO 3D is still remarkably better than the standard WinMo fare. But then, what isn’t? And yes, we too noticed that this resembles the mysterious x-ray of a device Samsung plans to spill the beans on next Monday.

Acer's Upcoming Handsets

Acer’s upcoming handsets made their debut at Computex in Taiwan and well, we just don’t ever seem to get tired of seeing “Snapdragon” listed in a handset’s specs. The F1 is the top of the line model featuring a 3.8-inch WVGA display, the coveted 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 300MB available storage memory (ROM), 89MB available program memory (RAM), 5 megapixel camera with flash and auto-focus, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, HSDPA, GPS, FM Tuner, 3.5mm headphone jack and Windows Mobile 6.5. The L1 and C1 are entry level smartphones with the L1 being a slider and the C1 a full touchscreen device. The L1 features a 2.8-inch 240×400 touchscreen display, a 5 way navigational button, 12 key numeric keypad and Windows Mobile 6.5. The C1 also features 2.8-inch 240×400 touchscreen with handwriting recognition, 528MHz processor, 2 megapixel fixed focus camera, microSD expansion, built-in stylus, and Windows Mobile 6.5. All three handsets are slated for release later this year.

The New Iphone 3g?

The biggest announcement and biggest question mark is the new version of the iPhone. A new model is coming for sure, but we don't know what will be in it.

Most probably, the new Apple cell will keep its current design. Since Steve Jobs came to Apple, dramatic industrial design changes have only happened across various generations of gut changes. Historically, the iMac, the Powerbook/Macbook, or the Mac Pro went through several iterations before experiencing a complete redesign. It's too early for the iPhone to change its face dramatically, specially when the current form factor works so well. And, after all, there are only a few ways to do a touch-screen phone. The iPhone 3G's design is simple, elegant, and works extremely well, so there is no reason to see a big re-design now.

Some people are talking about multiple color versions. With the iPod mini, nano, and shuffle, color became a way to convert the low-end hardware into fashion accessories. The iMac also went through that phase, which was later abandoned. The iPod, however, always stayed either white or black, becoming an icon on its own right. The iPhone is also a higher-end icon. Down the line—maybe in a different incarnation, as the iPhone OS product family expands—color will appear. But for now, looking at Apple's past history, logic dictates that the iPhone won't see the variety of colors that the iPod nano has now.

Other rumors point at something called "the unibody iPhone", which is a retarded notion at best. The iPhone is already "unibody." It may not be carved out of a single piece of aluminum, but there's no need for that. It is a single surface—which is made of plastic to make reception better—and a glass top. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Amazon Kindle DX

Just as with the Kindle 2, Amazon posted the Kindle DX product page while the launch event was underway. Specs-wise, there's not much here we didn't know: the big changes are a larger 9.7-inch screen that rotates to landscape display, a PDF reader, and more storage space at 3.3GB. The big news is actually the flat $489 price tag, which seems on the high-side of realistic to us -- although the subsidy-pricing rumors weren't totally inaccurate, as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe will offer subsidized on-contract Kindles to customers who can't get at-home delivery when the DX ships this summer. (Yes, that's a pretty lame restriction.) Amazon's also announcing a wide range of textbook publishing partnerships, with tomes from Addison-Wesley, Wiley Higher Education, Longman & Prentice Hall and many others available -- and what's more, Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia have all signed on to distribute 'hundreds' of Kindle DXs to students this fall.

Toshiba NB205 Netbook

This updated netbook will feature a chiclet keyboard as an option and have a standard six-cell battery. Another cool feature is a USB port that will actively charge external devices even when the netbook itself it’s powered up.

The design on this netbook is slimmer but still shares some specs with the original NB200 including 1GB RAM, a 1.66GHz Atom processor, Bluetooth and a 160GB hard drive. There will be several systems available including a base model, the NB205-210 in black for $350 and an upgraded version, the NB205-310 that adds the chiclet keyboard, and color options in pink, white, blue and brown for $400.

Samsung U440 Gloss

Today U.S. Cellular announced the availability of the Samsung u440 Gloss. The Gloss is a clamshell with full QWERTY keyboard for messaging. It has stereo Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera, music player and supports microSD cards up to 16GB. The Gloss can access U.S. Cellular's easyedge content center. Pricing information wasn't immediately revealed, but the phone is available at U.S. Cellular's retail locations.

HP Mini 2140

Even though the HP Mini 1000 is only a few months old, Hewlett-Packard was actually an early player in the Netbook field. The company's business system side came up with the Mini-Note 2133 in spring 2008, with a solid, brushed-metal chassis and a nearly full-size keyboard. Unfortunately, this predated Intel's Atom CPU, and rather than using the Celeron processor that came with the very first Netbooks, HP went with an underpowered Via C7-M, which pretty much killed any chance it had of becoming a mainstream product.

Now that the plastic-clad, Atom-powered consumer version has become a hit, HP's business side is taking another crack at the Netbook market with a radically updated version, the $499 HP Mini 2140.

It keeps the aluminum construction and big keyboard, but updates the components to an Intel Atom CPU, and adds an accelerometer for the hard drive, and a full ExpressCard/54 slot--a Netbook first (Lenovo's S10 has a smaller Express Card/34 slot).

Thanks to those added features--and some concerns about the added weight aside--the 2140 is currently our favorite Netbook less than $500.

I love the way Best Buy just skips those annoying mail in rebates!

Best Buy may not be launching the Pre exclusively, but it's probably the place to go if you're scouting one come June 6th. Why? Pretty simple, really -- you'll leave the joint with an extra Benjamin in your purse. You see, those who waltz into a Sprint store will be forced to pay $299.99 up front (with a two-year contract) and wait eons for a $100 mail-in rebate to return. Over at Best Buy Mobile, you'll pay $199.99 free and clear, sign your contract and proceed to send us loads of personal hands-on shots. Be honest -- which scenario sounds superior to you?

Motorola's first iDEN QWERTY

Today Motorola introduced a new iDEN phone, the full-QWERTY equipped i465 Clutch. The Clutch is semi-ruggedized and offers PTT, threaded SMS and MMS messaging, as well as POP3 email support. It has Bluetooth 1.2, VGA camera with video capture, and uses microUSB for charging and data transfer. The Clutch will become available during the second quarter of 2009. Sprint has not said it will carry this device, but it is compatible with Sprint and Boost's iDEN network.

Palm Eos?

Okay everyone -- grain of salt goggles on? According to PhoneNews, not only is a GSM version of the Palm Eos (AKA Mini Pre, AKA Pixie, AKA Castle) coming to AT&T sometime in the near future, but Sprint will be getting its version of the Centro-like device come Q3 2009. The site claims that 'sources within Sprint' have 'confirmed' the launch window for a phone with specs similar to those on the device we hit yesterday, and that said device is actually in testing right now. Of course, just as we mentioned with the Eos news, this isn't actually confirmed by anyone at Palm (or even close) right now... and you know how much the internet loves a rumor. Still, this would make a lot of sense as Sprint and Palm are all but joined at the hip, and it helps jibe some of the differing reports we / the blogosphere has heard about carriers.

AT&T Upgrading Its 3G Network to 7.2 Mbps

AT&T is increasing the download speed of its 3G network to 7.2 Mbps. Currently, this carrier's HSPA (high-speed packet access) network offers downloads at 3.6 Mbps under ideal conditions, so this upgrade will be a doubling in speed.

All that this increase requires is installing new software on its cell towers, so it's a relatively simple process.

However, the 3G network is only half of the equation -- phones won't automatically be able to take advantage of the increased network speed. Most of AT&T's current models support HSPA at 3.6 Mbps, and the carrier is now testing its products with towers that offer 7.2 Mbps downloads.

According to unconfirmed reports, the next generation of the Apple iPhone will debut this summer with support for this faster 3G network.

Continuing to Upgrade
Later this year, AT&T is going to start upgrading its network with HSPA+, which will increase the theoretical download speed to 21 Mbps.

In 2010, the carrier is going to start building its LTE (long-term evolution) network, which should go on-line the following year. This 4G standard will offer download speeds near 150 Mbps.

Scott McElroy, AT&T Mobility VP of technology realization, says that LTE service will be available first for laptops but phones will eventually be able to use it. These devices will offer voice service over this data network with VoIP software.

LG Viewty Smart

The official arrival of LG’s Viewty Smart might not have been as well coordinated as LG may have liked, but the highly-anticipated successor to the popular Viewty is now official. Featuring an 8 megapixel camera with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens, the Viewty Smart will be able to take pictures at up to 1600 ISO and record videos in “DVD-quality” with DivX and XviD playback to boot. Other than that, a 3″ touchscreen display with WVGA resolution, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, aGPS, Wi-Fi and the rather interesting 3D S-Class UI round out the rest of the 12.4mm thin package. So when can you get it and for how much? According to LG, Europeans will be the first to get a crack at the Viewty Smart this May and sometime after that it will start to trickle out across the globe. Pricing has not yet been made available.

T-Mobile Sidekick LX

Not that big of a secret but finally made official at the stroke of midnight, T-Mobile’s Sidekick line-up finally gets a much needed refresh. It’s been covered a bunch before but here are the major selling points (or just random lines of text you can ignore):

* A stunning 3.2″ 854×480 resolution Sharp F-WVGA screen
* Integrated Facebook MySpace and Twitter (finally!)
* GPS support! Live Search is now GPS-powered, too
* 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with improved video capabilities
* Microsoft Exchange support
* T-Mobile 3G/HSDPA
* Other really cool stuff you don’t know about

The new Sidekick LX will go on sale May 13th nationwide for $199 on a two year agreement.

Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone G60

It may have taken a year and a half and a second official announcement but it looks like we may finally have word on when the Garmin-ASUS nuvifone is set to hit the streets. Of course we still don’t have any official pricing info or an exact launch date, but a Reuters article from this morning places the nuvifone G60 on store shelves in June. As for which store shelves the G60 will land on, it’s still looking like AT&T is where the smart money is though nothing has been confirmed. The article cites “a source with direct knowledge of the project” in stating that ASUS will issue its first LiMo-powered handset in June. As the M20 runs Windows Mobile it’s a safe bet to presume we’re talking about the G60 here. An AT&T-subsidized, LiMo-fueled, 3G-rocking navigation beast… We want it.

Samsung Instinct ;The Sequel

The Instinct s30 will be almost the same size as its predecessor, but slimmer. It will also have many of the same features, including a touchscreen, GPS,and wireless broadband (EV-DO Rev. A).

Samsung Instinct s30The s30 will offer an improved web-browsing experience thanks to Opera Mini 4.2.

Sprint has tried to strike a balance between consumer and business functions. This model will be able to synchronize with a Microsoft Exchange server for email and calendar data, but will also include the popular games 'Guitar Hero - World Tour' and 'Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader', as well as Sprint TV and Sprint Music.

The Instinct s30 will run a proprietary operating system and support third-party Java applications. It will be more open than its predecessor, giving developers access to core Java APIs (application programming interface), including messaging, multimedia and Bluetooth, which allow developers to take advantage of the phones features. These changes will soon be available for the original in the near future.

HTC Introduces the Snap at CTIA 2009

HTC kicked off the show Wednesday morning by introducing the Snap, its newest QWERTY device. We haven't seen one in this form factor from the smartphone manufacturer in a while (think back to the T-Mobile Dash) and given the design, it's no surprise that the handset is optimized for e-mail and messaging.

In fact, HTC thinks e-mail is so important it has created a new feature called Inner Circle that prioritizes your e-mails based on your preferences. By pressing the dedicated Inner Circle button, the HTC Snap will bring e-mails from a preselected group of people to the top of your in-box so you can read and reply to them immediately.

The new functionality was created in response to a Harris Interactive study that found 44 percent of U.S. adults are overwhelmed by the amount of e-mail they receive, and 55 percent of U.S. adults prioritize five or fewer people with whom they communicate via e-mail.

The HTC Snap offers Microsoft Direct Push Technology for real-time e-mail delivery and automatic synchronization with your Outlook calendar, tasks, and contacts via Exchange Server as well as support for POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts. The smartphone's full QWERTY keyboard also features "extra-large domed keys" to provide for a better typing experience.

Moving beyond messaging, the Snap will run Windows Mobile 6.1 and comes with integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, 256MB ROM/192MB RAM, a microSD/SDHC expansion slot, and 2-megapixel camera/camcorder. The smartphone measures 4.5 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.4 inch deep and has a 2.4-inch QVGA nontouch display.

The HTC Snap is expected to be available in select channels during the second quarter of 2009 and will be rolled out worldwide during the second half of the year. Here in the States, we'll get our on own version of the Snap, called the HTC S522, this summer and it will support AT&T's 850/1900MHz HSDPA bands, though it'll be sold unlocked and not through the carrier. Pricing was not revealed at this time.

Blackberry Niagra 9630 OS is a good mixture of Bold & Storm features

We know you're hungry for some more details on the BlackBerry Niagara 9630, so here we go. Crackberry's released the second part of its impressions with the device, this time focusing on the OS 4.7.1 that they note functions like a hybrid of the Storm's OS 4.7 and Bold / Curve 8900's OS 4.6. Features lovingly borrowed from the SurePress-equipped touchscreen include app switching by pushing down the menu key, trackball gestures in the photo gallery, a revised profiles menu, bubblier boxes in the options menu, and possibly a new memory manager within the media center. On their own, these all seem pretty minor, but they add up to a much more pleasant experience. Judging by the preview, it looks it's still shaping up to be one of the best 'berry's you can buy. The CB crew conjecture this might actually be the upcoming OS 5.0 in disguise, judging by their similarities. We'll find out for sure sometime in May.

Sprint unviels WiMAX expansion cities,devices for 2009,2010

The XOHM label may be gone, but the potency of Sprint's WiMAX network is still kickin' in and around Baltimore. For those itching for wicked fast mobile broadband outside of The Charm City, Sprint has just unveiled a slew of expansion areas that'll get gifted in 2009 and 2010. As for the rest of this year, folks in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Portland and Seattle can expect Sprint 4G rollouts, while residents of Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. can be on the lookout in 2010. In related news, the carrier is also taking this opportunity to reveal that it has 'several new 4G devices planned for 2009 and 2010, including a single-mode 4G data card, embedded laptops, a small-office-home-office broadband modem and a tri-mode phone.

Vuze brings online video to game consoles,portable media players

Sheesh -- this is dangerously close to getting out of hand. We've got Hulu, boxee, ZeeVee and Vuze (amongst others) all vying for your attention in the wide world of broadband video, but it's the latter dishing out a potent new offering with its latest version. Today, Vuze has announced a new iteration of its online video portal application that integrates playback with iPhone, iPod, AppleTV, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 devices. So far as we can tell, no other competitor offers that much integration (read: direct Mac / PC-to-device transfers) across so many products. Of course, none of this matters if you aren't a fan of Vuze itself, but you can surf on over to download it (gratis, naturally) in order to test the waters.