Palm just recently launched its latest Windows Mobile Professional smartphone, the Palm Treo Pro and thanks to Palm Germany and Vodafone Germany, I got my hands on Palm's Treo 750 follower, which went available across Europe exclusively from Vodafone. Running on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and powered by a Qualcomm MSM7201 CPU at 400 MHz, the Treo Pro features quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and triband UMTS/HSDPA, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and GPS capabilities. The inbuilt 256 MB ROM and 128 MB RAM can be expanded with microSDHC memory cards up to 32 GB and while the device lacks a front facing camera for video telephony, it features a 2.0 megapixel main camera on the back. Quite nice is the flush transflective color touchscreen which features Palm's typical 320 x 320 pixel screen resolutions and which allows Palm to leave the two hardware soft-keys in favor of using the touchscreen instead. The overall design looks pretty elegant since the housing features a kind of glossy piano-black design:

  How many Google and HTC engineers does it take to build an Android phone? We don't have the punchline to that one, exactly -- but at least we have a pretty good idea of how long it takes. HTC's Chief Marketing Officer has revealed that it kicked off negotiations with Google some five years ago -- before it had even acquired Android, interestingly -- and has been deeply embedded in the Android team for the past three years. That's a long frickin' time, but we figure the first model's probably ten times harder to throw together than its successors are, so hopefully we'll see a nice cadence of "HTC Innovation" from here on out. We know it's been said many times before, but it probably bears repeating: Touch Pro and Touch HD with Android, guys.

  If you happened to catch the oddly -named 9@9k about a year ago, you'll likely notice that the "new" X500 seems like a twin with a minor bit of cosmetic work. The X500 features two-month standby and 16 hour talk time, tri-band EDGE, 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expansion, and an FM radio with RDS support. The only bit of cool we see going on here is the nifty "Up to 2 months standby" written on the screen, and we expect that's not a feature the phone actually has. The Philips Xenium X500 is set to ship to Russia, Turkey, and Romania, at some point in the future, and honestly, with the care-o-meter registering about zero on this set, we may just never find out.

  If there was ever a case for simplified phones, this is it. WDSGlobal surveyed 500 mobile users and found that only 20% of the features were regularly used and a whole 25% were entirely undiscovered. “For the most part, users struggled to list more than half a dozen services featured on their current mobile phone. Regular usage was largely confined to voice, text messaging, address book, camera and alarm clock. Users do dip into additional services, such as the music player, Internet and games, but we found that a large proportion of features remained completely undiscovered,” says Doug Overton, vice president of consulting and analysis at WDSGlobal. Service discovery, the company suggests, is now one of the most challenging barriers to mobile service adoption. You can see why less means more for the majority of phone users, and why something like the iPhone, with its highly discoverable applications, is so popular. One would hope that Android’s rich software marketplace will do more than just throw a bunch of third-party fruits of labour into a giant pile and let the end users sort them out, but will provide a clean and enjoyable portal for that 25% of applications that never see the light of...

  After getting its feets into the low-end handset market, China’s ZTE is now looking to enter the high-end market, too. Apparently, the Chinese company will begin shipping Windows Mobile-powered devices with Vodafone next year and there are signs of other such deals. According to the research firm Ovum, ZTE will also work on Linux-powered smartphones. At the moment, however, it’s not clear whether they’ll “go Google” or join the “LiMo camp.” We certainly look forward to the former, though if they do a proper job, we’ll be among the first to congratulate them on their LiMo smartphone. Symbian, on the other hand, is not in ZTE’s roadmap at the moment. ZTE’s growth in the handset markets has been rapid — from 15 million units shipped in 2006, the company is on course to ship 50 million in 2008. More than 80% of these are co-branded with and customized for its operator partners. In China, ZTE is a front runner in 3G devices and a clear leader in TD-SCDMA, owning more than 30% of the total market.  

  We were lucky enough to get our hands on some photos that have never been seen before of the Motorola Q11. This phone offers GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3MPx Cam and Windows Mobile 6.1.. No information as to when we will see this puppy but the photos don't look too shabby!

  Skyfire, announced that they are opening up registration of their free browser to all. In addition, the Mountain View based company is announcing the .8 version of their revolutionary product for Windows Mobile. The new version of Skyfire adds even more speed and ease to browsing the Internet from a mobile device. The Skyfire browser was the first mobile browser to support full web PC browsing, including rich media content and supporting Ajax, Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media, and others. “Our users love media rich sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and ESPN on Skyfire ” said CMO Adam Sexton, “and based on their input we added the most requested features and improved our user experience. Users can now find content more quickly with Super Bar, and can now easily share that content with anyone in their address book. ”

  Lose this cell phone and you'll be locked out of your car, too. Nissan, Docomo and Sharp announced on Wednesday a phone they developed together that doubles as a car key. The gadget, premiering in Japan, will utilize Nissan's pre-existing Intelligent Key technology -- which allows Nissan owners to wirelessly control their car locks and ignitions. Slick! Although I probably wouldn't buy a phone just because it can be used as a car key -- and I wouldn't buy a Nissan just because there's a cell phone that controls it. Sounds like it would be a pretty neat idea for an iPhone or Google Android application though, wouldn't it? I have doubts that's possible, but we'd more likely see something like that on the latter platform.  

  We all know how great the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro Windows Mobile smartphones have proven to be. With plenty of processing power and system memory under the hood and that 2.8-inch VGA display making sure everything from websites to videos look amazing, the HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch Diamond are surefire hits for 2008 (not to mention 2009). But, the latest TouchFLO 3D-toting handsets from HTC aren’t just capable mobile phones, media players, mobile internet devices, and GPS navigation devices, they can also serve as a wireless remote/mouse for your computer. GRemote, created by xda-developers (did you expect any less from xda-developers?) user marbalon, essentially turns your HTC Touch Diamond or HTC Touch Pro into a wireless mouse for use with your Windows machine. The application emulates the look and functionality of a Logitech MX Air Mouse (pictured to the right) - which isn’t so much a mouse, Logitech MX Air Mouse Logitech MX Air Mouse, as it is a wireless remote that you wave in the air to affect mouse-movement on your computer. GRemote allows you to use the accelerometers in your HTC Touch Diamond or HTC Touch Pro to track your hand’s movement - translating that movement into the mouse pointer. There’s even...

Vip mobile, a member of mobilkom austria group, and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today introduced the new BlackBerry® Bold™ and BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8110 smartphones for the Serbian market. Both smartphones will be available in selected Vip centers across the country beginning today. Vip was the first to introduce BlackBerry® service in Serbia in December 2007. These two new BlackBerry® smartphones complement the BlackBerry® Pearl™8100, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8310 and BlackBerry® 8800 smartphones as part of the Vodafone Office product portfolio available from Vip.

  Sony Ericsson, a 50:50 joint venture by Sony, a FIFA Partner, and Ericsson, announces today that it has been appointed the Official Mobile Phone Handset of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™. This appointment is effective immediately and forms part of the Digital Life category, which FIFA Partner Sony Corporation, one of Sony Ericsson’s parent companies, acquired in 2005. Speaking in Lund, Sweden, to an assembled audience of journalists, Lennard Hoornik, Corporate Vice President and Head of Global Marketing said, “We are very excited about this announcement. At Sony Ericsson we feel we are uniquely placed to be a champion of football fans worldwide, using the marketing and promotional rights this agreement grants us to make Sony Ericsson handsets and accessories an integral part of the fan experience. Our role in football will be to use our sponsorship to innovate the experience of fans and give them greater access to football." The Sony Ericsson sponsorship runs to the end of 2010 and includes the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in South Africa. As the official mobile handset of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™, Sony Ericsson will enjoy various category exclusive rights globally and will be designated a FIFA World Cup™ Sponsor. Sony Ericsson...

  Convenient, good looking and distinctive, the Bluetooth ™ MBW-200 range of Bluetooth™ watches is an expansion of the highly successful Bluetooth ™ MBW-150 range. With three different sophisticated designs to match your personality, be the first among your friends to control your phone with your watch. Missed an important call or SMS because you couldn’t hear or find your phone at the bottom of your handbag? With the MBW-200 this is now a thing of the past. Using innovative Bluetooth™ technology, the watch displays the caller ID and vibrates as your phone is ringing or when you receive an SMS. Reject or mute the call with a button on the watch or use the Bluetooth™ headset or mobile phone to answer the call and start chatting. The MBW-200 range is available in selected markets in Q4. Sony Ericsson will also expand the MBW-150 range with yet another design. The MBW-150 Classic is a sporty edition with a brown leather strap and white face that will be available early next year in selected...

  MOLDCELL company is informing that on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 is going to organize a press conference to announce the commercial launch of mobile services of the third generation (3G)! The press conference will take place at Leogrand Convention Center, Nistru conference room, at 11:00 AM. Whithin the frames of the press conference, MOLDCELL will present the public offer, launching in premiere for Moldova,three 3G services: video call, mobile internet and mobile TV. The commercial launch of 3G services realized by MOLDCELL is considered to be one of the fastest in the world. Having already implemented 12 technologies on Moldovan market, all for the first time at the moment of launch, MOLDCELL once again confirmed its status of the leader in implementing advanced technologies. MOLDCELL eagerly invested in the construction of the 3G network and the elaboration of 3G services, being the first mobile telephony operator in the Republic of Moldova to demonstrate publicly, on June 24 of this year, its readiness from the technical point of view to provide mobile 3G services, having presented in premiere for Moldova broadband data transfer and video call.The request for obtaining the 3G licence was submitted on August 14, the licence being granted...