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LG Incite for AT&T, now with more official


We noticed this on AT&T's web store in the wee hours this morning, and sure enough, they've gone ahead and announced the LG Incite in all its official glory today (normally the announcement comes before the web store stuff, but whatever). It's got WiFi, a 3-megapixel camera, a 3-inch touchscreen equipped with haptics and 400 x 240 resolution, AT&T Navigator, microSD support up to 16GB, triband HSDPA, and Windows Mobile 6.1 -- in other words, LG's produced a nice QWERTY-less foil to the Fuze here. It's available straight away in stores, too, as long as you're willing to shell out the $199.99 on contract after rebates.

Motorola adds another 5-megapixel phone to the mix with VE66


If you like what the ZN5 brings to the table but roundish sliders are more your cup of tea (and when the alternative is a drab gray candybar with purple accents, we can't say we blame you), Moto's got the solution to the pollution this morning with the official announcement of the VE66. You've got that 5-megapixel autofocus cam with LED flash (as opposed to the ZN5's xenon) and image stabilization, WiFi, FM radio, Motorola's CrystalTalk noise reduction, and a navigation wheel for flying through song tracks. Interestingly, there's no mention of Moto's partnership with Kodak anywhere on the phone or the announcement -- but something tells us that won't have an effect on picture quality. Look for it to launch some time this quarter.

Celio's new REDFLY C7 and C8N answer questions no one is asking


What if you took the REDFLY -- you know, that Foleo-like thing for Windows Mobile phones -- and cheapened it up a bit? Maybe knock the luxurious 8.3-inch display down to a more reasonable 7 inches, lose three hours of battery life, and add $30 to the asking price, for starters? That's the indecent proposal Celio has put together with its new C7 model, trading endurance and screen size for an eight-ounce drop in the original's two-pound frame. Not what you had in mind, you say? Okay, okay, try this, then: the C8N carries over the 8.3-inch display and adds a "REDFLY Media Port" for connecting an iPod, iPhone, Zune, digicam, or pretty much anything else with a composite TV-out for viewing on the 800 x 480 screen -- but the catch is that you'll also need the $20 "REDFLY Media Cable" (sorry, but that really does belong in quotes) to complete the package on top of the cost of the C8N itself. Either way, the new models are still dumb terminals that need juice from a WinMo-based device to function -- so yeah, if your Treo 750's looking a little lonely over there in the corner, the C7 and C8N should fill the bill nicely when they hit in the first week of December for $229 and $299, respectively.

Android-powered Sciphone Dream G2 is neither dreamy nor the G1's successor


The G1's taken some flak for being just a little less fashion-forward than the hottest handsets on the market, but as retail Android handsets go, it's the most beautiful thing going -- and we think that illustrious title's safe for the time being. Meet the "Dream G2" (groan) from China's Sciphone, a brick of an Android-powered handset promised for a November 28 release featuring EDGE data, WiFi, 4-megapixel cam with autofocus, 50MB of internal memory, microSD expansion to 16GB, FM radio, a QVGA display, and "the most advanced software ever engineered." Without a physical keyboard (as far as we can see, anyhow) and no software support in Android promised for a few months at minimum, it's unclear how you'll input text, but hey, the release is still a good ten days away -- maybe these guys are good at thinking on their feet.

[Via ModMyGphone, thanks neerhaj]

Finally, proper banner ads for Android: Flash demoed on a G1


At Adobe's MAX event this morning, none other than Andy Rubin himself helped to demo Flash running on a G1, proving that it's possible (in case years of Nokias with S60 browsers haven't already done a sufficient job of showing that) and that Apple's running out of excuses. It wasn't mentioned exactly when we'd see it pushed out in an over-the-air update (or available from the Market, possibly, we suppose), but at least Rubin confirmed that Adobe and Google are pooling their collective noggins to make it happen. Ads for life insurance just aren't the same without an animated dancing dude or flying pig, so we're delighted to hear that some balance is going to be restored to the world.

BlackBerry Storm comes to Vodafone today -- take cover immediately


Just how badly do you want a Storm? Badly enough to pull up your long-established roots, fly for half a day, and take residence in a foreign land thousands of miles from home? For Americans who absolutely cannot wait another week for RIM's first touchscreen device to launch on domestic soil, that's the only option; for Brits on Vodafone, though, heaven is but a single shop trip away. The BlackBerry Storm has now officially launched in the Old Country and can be had for as little as zilch on a Voda plan, so do let us know how your experiences go, yeah? Your yankee friends thank you in advance.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Keepin' it real fake, part CLXVI: the Sany Ericssan X1 with Wyndowz Mobil


Strategic advantages Sany Ericssan holds over Sony Ericsson:
  • A quarterly sales volume measured in the hundreds is considered a rousing success.
  • Neither Sany nor Ericssan have any intention of pulling out of the joint venture.
  • "Outsourcing" of industrial design saves time, money, and staff.
  • None of those pesky Windows Mobile licensing fees to worry about.
  • GPRS data speed isn't a problem -- it's a way of life.
[Via PMP Today]

Qualcomm throws in the towel on UMB, 4G race down to LTE and WiMAX

Realistically, the death knell tolled long ago for Qualcomm's stillborn Ultra Mobile Broadband initiative, its own special flavor of 4G and the logical next step in the CDMA2000 family of technologies. To make things nice and official, though, they went ahead and officially announced that they've halted development on the spec during an analysts' meeting earlier today, throwing support behind the competing LTE standard -- one of the two remaining techs vying for the hearts and minds of the world's 4G-wanting public. So where's one of the world's great patent enforcers going to collect cash now? Oh, don't worry about little ol' Qualcomm; the company claims it has plenty of 4G-relevant intellectual property that'll keep its bankrolls full for years to come.

[Via dailywireless.org]

Verizon schedules Storm for November 21 release, $199.99 on contract


It may not be the iPhone-beating pricing we'd been hoping for, but $199.99 on a new two-year contract after $50 mail-in rebate will probably still be enough to sell a Storm or two (or billion), especially considering that it becomes both RIM's first touchscreen set and Verizon's first phone with global 3G when it finally floods the market (a bundled 8GB microSD card doesn't hurt, either). Speaking of flooding the market, it'll be available both online and in-store starting November 21 -- just a week from this Friday -- so get ready to finally say goodnight to that grungy BlackBerry 950 you've been using since 1978.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits FCC, destined for US airwaves early next year


With the 8900 having just launched on T-Mobile Germany, it only stands to reason that T-Mobile's US subsidiary would be a logical next step; after all, it's already brought in the WiFi-equipped 8320, and the 8900 is the next progression in that bloodline. It also makes a ripe competitor for the Bold, which just saw the light of day on T-Mobile's much-larger rival -- and seeing how RIM has now mentioned that the 8900 will be coming stateside in the first quarter of 2009, we're feeling like a T-Mob launch is about as close to a sure thing as you can find these days. The only question is, why wait so long? When you consider that the darned thing just passed the FCC, we're not seeing a compelling reason to hold it until after the crucial holiday season unless they're looking to give the 8220 some breathing room -- and hey, sorry, 8220, but in a battle against the 8900, you're going to go down every time.

Read - Coming to the US
Read - FCC filing

iSuppli says T-Mobile G1 costs $144 to make, nothing to love

Teardown specialist iSuppli is at it again, digging through the G1's guts this time around in an effort to wrap its inquisitive brain around the inaugural Android handset's bill of materials. The result? $144, which naturally doesn't reflect HTC's R&D -- an additional expense that might have been unusually low for the G1 considering HTC's overwhelming expertise in manufacturing all things mobile. For the record, this is about $30 less than iSuppli's July estimate for the 8GB iPhone 3G, though the comparison isn't terribly fair considering that the G1 has a mere pittance of internal storage by comparison. There's no telling what T-Mobile pays HTC for each and every G1 it sells, but we pay $179 (or less) on contract -- so it seems HTC is making itself a nice little profit right out of the gate and customers aren't footing much of the bill. At least, not until they've gone a few months into their two-year agreements.

HTC MAX 4G officially announced, world's first GSM / WiMAX phone


Hey Sprint, you listening? Granted, GSM doesn't do Sprint a whole lot of good in the States, but swapping a CDMA radio into HTC's first WiMAX effort here would make for a downright mighty response to the Touch HD. The previously-seen T8920 has turned out to be the MAX 4G, an 800 x 480 monster with 8GB of Flash on board, two cameras, an FM radio, GPS, WiFi, triband EDGE, and -- most importantly -- WiMAX support, making it the first GSM / WiMAX handset anywhere in the world. It'll be launching on Scartel's Yota network in Russia, and if you have friends cool enough to have a MAX 4G of their own, calls between the two of y'all will automatically be routed over the WiMAX airwaves using VoIP. A launch date hasn't been announced, but unless you're in Russia, there's probably not much point in even bothering to lust after this one. If you insist, though, you can check out a couple additional shots of the phone over at Engadget Mobile.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 gets official for T-Mobile Germany


Beep beep, outta the way, incoming RIM product blitz! Seriously, this is like a high-powered corporate executive's dream -- not one, not two, not three, not four, but five major product launches out of Waterloo in the span of a few months' time. Latest out of the gate is the 8900 Curve, successor to the 8300 series featuring a heavily-upgraded 480 x 360 display, microSD support to 16GB, WiFi, 3.2-megapixel cam with autofocus, and integrated GPS. Sadly, network data tops out at EDGE speeds -- but if you really need more, we s'pose that's where the Bold comes into play. No word on any launches outside of Bavaria just yet, but on T-Mobile Germany, the 8900 is available "mid November" (which is basically now) for €4.95 (yes, that's not a typo, 4.95 euros) on a 24-month contract.

[Via IntoMobile]

Verizon locks in BlackBerry Storm launch for November 24 at $199.99?


Murphy's Law dictated from the very beginning that Verizon's claim of a November launch for the Storm meant late November (at best), and indeed, it now looks like that's where we're headed. Boy Genius Report has picked up some juicy documentation that seems to suggest that November 24 is the zero day with a $199.99 retail price after rebate; what's more, stores will be opening an hour early to accomodate the throngs of rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth businessmen and businesswomen in Zegna suits looking for their latest BlackBerry fix. It looks like there'll also be a "pre-launch" on the 20th, meaning customers Verizon really cares about -- not us, by any stretch of the imagination -- will have a chance stroll into one of 123 extra-special corporate stores to tool around with a demo unit and place their order in person. Either way, stores are expected to have tons of units available for sale on the 24th, so don't show up at 8pm the night before. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

Fuze rears its glossy head in some AT&T stores


Can't be long now, right? First we had dummies, but these are the real deal, ladies and gentlemen -- a little over five ounces of HSDPA, VGA, TouchFLO 3D, QWERTY, and likely a bunch more letters and numbers we're not recalling at the moment. Retail Fuzes are trickling into stores as we speak, though they're apparently going under lock and key; as far as we can tell, none will be sold until AT&T drops the green flag. In the meantime, Sprint, pimp that Touch Pro of yours as hard as you can, because we're afraid your exclusivity is about to end.



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