Cell phones

Aside from their two Pro-Series phones, Sanyo and Sprint also announced the Katana LX at CTIA. A replacement to the Katana II, the LX is a fairly basic handset with features such as a VGA camera, Bluetooth, and a speakerphone. It sets itself apart from the other Katanas with a brand new design however; it has a much shinier surface, complete with a translucent OLED LCD right on the front face. It's available in Pacific Blue, Elegant Pink, and Liquid Graphite. Pricing and availability is unknown at this point, but we expect it to be out before the end … Read more

Sprint announced a few Nextel Direct Connect phones at CTIA this week, and two of them are courtesy of Sanyo (which is currently part of Kyocera). Part of the new Sanyo "Pro Series" line, the Pro-200 and the Pro-700 are almost identical. Both feature a speakerphone, Bluetooth, Web access, e-mail, GPS, EV-DO, and of course, push-to-talk capability . Neither of them have cameras, but then, they're mostly meant for a work environment anyway. The one difference that sets the two models apart is that the Pro-700 is a military certified handset built to withstand dust, shock, and all … Read more

Samsung used CTIA to officially introduce the Samsung Alias, the upgrade to Verizon's Samsung SCH-U740. Though we're known about the phone since the beginning of this month, this is the first chance to see how it compares with its predecessor. From what we learned, the differences are minor. The Alias just has a silver color scheme and a few of the alphabetic keys on the full keyboard now are black and white to make them more identifiable as dialing buttons. So really, that's about it. You can get the Alias with Verizon Wireless for $49 with service. … Read more

Nokia has more at CTIA than just its new WiMax N810 Internet tablet. Today the company also unveiled two new CDMA/AWS handsets for North America. The Nokia 1606 and 3606 don't offer action-packed features sets, but with thin profiles and clean lines the flip phones are rather sporty looking. They should be out by the third quarter of this year, but we'll have to wait for pricing and carrier information.

The Nokia 3606 has the most features of the two handsets. It offers two color displays, Bluetooth, a MicroSD card slot, a speakerphone, a 1.3-megapixel camera … Read more

Verizon Wireless isn't the only CDMA carrier to have scored the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330. Sprint also announced at CTIA 2008 that it will offer the popular smartphone later this month. Like Verizon's version, the device features integrated GPS, Bluetooth 2.0 (with A2DP and DUN support), a 2-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, and a microSD/SDHC expansion slot. In addition, it's compatible with the carrier's various add-on services, including Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, and the Sprint Music Store. Sprint's BlackBerry Curve 8330 comes in a charcoal gray and is priced at $179.99 … Read more

Good news, good news! At CTIA, smartphone manufacturer HTC announced that it will offer the HTC Touch Dual through Best Buy stores this quarter. And the news gets even better, as the unlocked quad-band smartphone will ship with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition and wait for it...it will include support for U.S. 3G bands.

Already available in Europe and Asia (of course), the HTC Touch Dual is the next-generation of the HTC Touch, and alleviates some of the text entry pains of the original Touch by providing a slide-out SureType-like keypad. You'll also still get the … Read more

Sony Ericsson may have a shiny booth at CTIA, but the company is hardly showing us anything. We saw the Sony Ericsson Z750a announcement yesterday, but so far the company hasn't unveiled any brand-new handsets. In fact, the best news concerns a smartphone we already know about. This time we actually got to touch the fancy Xperia X1, which the company announced at GSMA World Congress. At the previous show the Windows Mobile 6.1 handset either rested behind glass or in the firm grip of a Sony Ericsson employee. It's disappointing to see the company phone it … Read more

After we were done giving the LG Vu the once-over, we shifted our attention to the LG enV(2) to see how different it really is from the the original enV. The answer: a lot. Measuring 4.0 inches by 2.13 inches by 0.65 inch, it's smaller, slimmer, and just overall better looking than the first enV, especially its front face. Yeah, we're not too thrilled with the tiny front display, but it provides a lot more room for the keypad, which is surprisingly roomy. The internal screen gets a sizable bump to 2.4-inch over … Read more

Soon after we heard the announcement of the LG Vu, we rushed over to the LG booth to take a look at it live and in person. The screen is indeed impressive--it measures 3.0-inch diagonally and displays 262,000 colors, and has a touch vibrating feedback (or haptic feedback) similar to that on the LG Glimmer and the LG Voyager. Its menu interface is almost identical to that of those phones as well. The four shortcut icons on the bottom of the standby page correspond to the main menu, AT&T Mobile TV, the contacts list, plus the … Read more