Dialed In

(Credit: HP)

This post was updated on 11/24, 12:33 p.m., PT with pricing after rebate.

Well, here's a name we haven't heard in the smartphone space for a while, HP. The company announced on Tuesday the upcoming availability of its latest smartphone, the HP iPaq Glisten, which will arrive in the "coming weeks" for AT&T and cost $179.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Designed with business users in mind, the iPaq Glisten runs Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Edition and features a 2.5-inch AMOLED touch screen as well as a full QWERTY keyboard. The smartphone also offers 3G support (UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

Despite the business focus, you do get a 3.1-megapixel camera with HP Photosmart Mobile software for editing photos. A Facebook app is also preloaded on the device so you can upload photos directly to the social-networking site or post them to the Web via Snapfish.

Other highlights include Voice Commander software, a 3.5mm headphone jack, 32GB of expandable memory (256MB SDRAM/512MB Flash), and a high-capacity 1590 lithium ion user-replaceable battery.

The HP iPaq Glisten will be sold through AT&T business channels, HP, and third-party online retailers.

Samsung Omnia II

(Credit: Samsung)

On Monday, Verizon Wireless announced that it will offer the Samsung Omnia II starting December 2 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

First introduced in early June, the Omnia II will take over for its predecessor, the Samsung Omnia, and brings a number of enhancements and new features, such as a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touch screen and Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Edition.

The Omnia II will sport Samsung's TouchWiz interface, allowing you to customize the home screen with various widgets and shortcuts and includes a similar 3D cube interface like the Samsung Behold II. In addition, Samsung has included a virtual QWERTY keyboard with Swype technology, which allows you to input text with a continuous swiping motion onscreen. (Check out a video demo here.)

Other goodies of the Samsung Omnia II include a 5-megapixel camera, support for DivX and Xvid movie files, 8GB of internal memory (expandable up to 16GB), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Opera 9.5.

Nicole, Bonnie, and I got some great news last week when we learned that our very excellent listeners had nominated Dialed In for the Best Mobile Phone Podcast in the Podcast Awards. Winners are chosen by listeners so you can click through to the Podcast Awards Web site and vote for us. And while you're at it, Buzz Out Loud could use your support for the Best Video Podcast. You can vote once a day between now and November 30. Thanks for your support!

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Last Sunday, Palm and Sprint released their second WebOS device together, the Palm Pixi, for $99.99 with a two-year contract.

In the grand scheme of things, $100 for a smartphone is a pretty darn good deal, but when you consider the fact that there are other products out there with more power and more features (for example, Wi-Fi) for the same price or lower, it makes the Pixi look foolish. Fortunately, thanks to third-party retailers, you can now get the entry-level smartphone for much less.

Both Amazon and Wal-Mart have lowered the price of the Palm Pixi by 75 percent, so now the smartphone is only $24.99. You will still need to sign up for a two-year service agreement, but it's certainly a much more enticing offer. In addition, the Palm Pre is now available from Amazon for $79.99, which is $70 less than Sprint's price.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

From left, the Incognito, Torino, and Domino.

(Credit: Kyocera)

Just as the holiday shopping season is reaching its peak, Kyocera on Friday dished out three new cell phones that offer midrange features in varying designs.

The Kyocera Torino S2300 is a squat candy bar phone with a touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. The feature set offers 3G, Bluetooth 2.0, a megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, and threaded text messaging.

The Kyocera Domino S1310 has a simple candy bar design in bright orange. Inside are Bluetooth 2.0, a WAP 2.0 browser, support for BREW, text and instant messaging, a personal organizer, and a speakerphone.

Kyocera also introduced a new handset under the Sanyo brand. The SCP-6760 Incognito is a candy bar phone that opens to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The style is similar to Kyocera's Wild Card, except it appears to be a bit more refined. Features include a 2.2 display, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.1, threaded text messaging, instant messaging and e-mail, a speakerphone, voice dialing, USB mass storage, a 2.5 mm headset jack, and BREW support.

The Incognito will be first out of the gate with a November 30 launch date for Sprint. The Domino will follow in December and the Torino will go on sale next February.

Starting Friday, Verizon Wireless customers can purchase the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 in stores and online for $99.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

As the CDMA kin to the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520, the Curve 8530 is more of an entry-level device so you won't find some of the higher-end features found on the BlackBerry Tour, such as world roaming capabilities and a high-resolution display.

However, the Curve 8530 certainly brings some worthy upgrades to the aging Curve 8330, including a next-gen processor, an optical trackpad, and dedicated media controls, and one key feature that even the Tour lacks: integrated Wi-Fi.

On paper, it seems RIM has another crowd-pleaser on its hands, but we have some reservations about the phone's design and Verizon also happens to have another capable messaging smartphone in its lineup, the HTC Ozone, which offers the same features plus world roaming and costs $50 less.

RIM shipped us a Curve 8530 to check out, but it didn't include all the software that would ship on the final version, so we'll hold off on posting a review and verdict till we get a final product. In the meantime, however, you can read some of our first impressions in our hands-on photo gallery below and get a better 360 view of the phone in our First Look video. Stay tuned for more.

Verizon RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 (photos)

Remember the rumor about Google working on its own Android phone? Well, it's back again, despite the fact that Google has said it's not interested in making hardware. On this week's episode of Dialed In, we discuss the possibility of an actual "Gphone" and its ramifications. Plus, Kent has a few things he would like to get off his chest about Sony Ericsson, and Nicole takes a look at a Bluetooth headset with a one-of-a-kind design.

Also, we're nominated for Best Mobile Phone Formatted Podcast at Podcast Awards, so feel free to head on over to the Web site and vote for our little old podcast. Voting takes place now until November 30 and you can vote once a day. Thanks for listening!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Rumor(s) of the week
Rumors of GPhone refuse to die
HTC Passion rumors heat up

News
Switching to Android? Read this first
It's OK, iPhone, the Droid can be good, too
Dell unveils Android-based Mini 3 smartphone
Nokia N900 now on sale in the U.S. BlackBerry Curve 8520 coming to AT&T
AT&T reveals the LG Shine II
An open letter to Sony Ericsson

Reviews
Samsung Mythic
T-Mobile Tap
Jabra Stone
Samsung Behold II
Palm Pixi
Sanyo SCP-3800

Upcoming reviews
Samsung Convoy
Samsung Code

(Credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET)

For those of you who have been chomping at the bit to get your hands on the Nokia N900, your wait is over. We just hope you've been saving up for it this whole time.

The highly anticipated Nokia N900 is now on sale in the U.S. for an unlocked price of $649. It's available at Nokia's flagship stores in New York and Chicago as well as online from Nokia and other retailers, such as Amazon.

Running on the Linux-based Maemo platform, the N900 is the next evolution of Nokia's Internet Tablet series and offers a heap of new features and functionality. For one thing, unlike previous devices such as the N810, you now get phone capabilities as well as 3G support (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; WCDMA 900/1700/2100). It also has one of the most powerful browsers we've seen with support for Adobe Flash Player 9.4 and AJAX.

In addition, the compact slider offers a full QWERTY keyboard, a 3.5-inch WVGA (800x480) resistive touch screen, and four customizable home screens. Other highlights include a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and multitasking capabilities that rivals those on the Palm Pre.

We got a chance to check it out in person at CTIA Fall 2009 and were instantly enamored with the device. Since then we've been begging and pleading Nokia for a review unit and the company has assured us that it's coming soon, so we hope to have a full review for you shortly. In the meantime, you can read some of our hands-on impressions in the photo gallery below.

Nokia N900 photos

(Credit: Screenshot by Bonnie Cha/CNET)

As most Palm Pre owners (and anyone who bought the Palm Pixi, which went on sale Sunday) found out this weekend, WebOS 1.3.1 is now available for download.

The latest version of Palm's WebOS brings new features, such as the integration of Yahoo contacts, calendar, and instant messaging into Palm Synergy; text message forwarding; custom ring tone support; and support for Google Apps and Yahoo Small Business Domain e-mail accounts. In addition, WebOS 1.3.1 offers several of bug fixes, all of which you can find on Palm's Web site.

However, there seems to be some hidden treasures of WebOS 1.3.1. Precentral.net has listed some of the undocumented features that its users have found as well as changes to general performance. Some of the highlights include:

• Snappier response from the photo app
• Delete all option in the Trash e-mail folder
• International dialing preferences
• Signs that video recording capabilities are in the works

There are a handful more discoveries over at Precentral. But what about you? Have you found any goodies? Let us know or just tell us about your general experience with WebOS 1.3.1 by leaving a comment.