smartphone

Today, Sprint officially announced its plans to offer the HTC Touch smartphone with availability starting on November 4 for $249.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. If you'll remember, we reviewed an unlocked version of the Touch back in June, which made headlines for its all-touch-screen interface--pre-iPhone release. Though we had major issues with the poor text entry input methods (or lack thereof), it didn't seem to bother too many CNET readers, garnering an average 8.5 user rating.

The Sprint HTC Touch features some enhancements and carrier-specific services not found on … Read more

Sun Microsystems Chairman Scott McNealy said he was misquoted in a South Korean newspaper earlier this week as saying Sun and cell phone maker Samsung Electronics are working on an iPhone-killer.

McNealy, who stopped in New York Thursday on his way back from South Korea to deliver a speech at the World Business Forum, said that the newspaper must have misunderstood a translation of what he had said.

"I never said that," he said. "I'm not really sure where they got that. I think it was a translation problem."

When pressed further during an interview … Read more

First announced exactly a month ago, the Palm Treo 500v smartphone is now available in Asia, at least in Singapore. The 500v was launched in partnership with European carrier Vodafone in September and still bears that operator's brand name even though Palm has released it with M1 here.

Using Windows Mobile 6 standard, the 500v is Palm's first Treo without a touchscreen. It still has the same QWERTY keypad found in every one of its PDA-phones but sports different features from earlier Treos because it is targeted at the consumer market rather than businesses. One point that really … Read more

Details are a little sketchy at this point, but it seems the sequel to the Samsung BlackJack is baking in the oven. The folks over at Mobile Phones Reviews and Tips (via Engadget Mobile) have some specs and images of the Samsung SGH-i617, which has actually passed FCC tests. The Windows Mobile 6 smartphone keeps a similarly sleek form factor with a full QWERTY keyboard, upgrades to a 2-megapixel camera, works on the HSDPA 850/1900 networks, and looks to be AT&T-bound. Let's just hope they've corrected the battery issues, eh? Not much else is known … Read more

Symantec has released a public beta for its new suite of smart phone protection, called Norton Smartphone Security Premier Edition. Features in this release include antivirus protection, antispam for SMS, firewall, personal data protection through encryption, and locking the device via password protection.

The beta software requires a mobile device running Windows Mobile 5.0 PocketPC with 4.5MB of storage or Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone with 4.2MB of storage. Access to the public beta can be found here.

SnagIt is great for taking screenshots of your PC, but why should stationary users have all the fun?

After all, handset screens may be smaller, but are they any less worthy of digital capture? If you're still using your digital camera to take said screenshots of your Windows Pocket PC or Smartphone, it's time you discovered Screen Capture, a free, friendly app you can load from your PC that takes stills of your mobile screen. Unlike other screenshot programs, you open Screen Capture before shooting your image and close it when you're through, jumping from the program … Read more

Say what you will about Britney's relationships (including the one with her hair), but there's one love where her loyalty has never wavered: her bond with the BlackBerry.

Just as it was instrumental in her final text message to K-Fed, the trusty device has never left her side through the latest rehab stint (and escape), as the paparazzi found out. And she's not alone: the BlackBerry 8700, according to GeekSugar, is apparently the smart phone of choice for scads of other celebs, from Brit-buddy Jamie-Lynn Sigler to Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Aniston, and the ubiquitous Paris Hilton.

We'… Read more

We understand people's attachments to their cell phones--functionally and even emotionally--but literally?

The somewhat-distubingly named "Rivet Attachment System" aims to do everything in its power to keep you and your beloved handset from parting ways, short of surgery. Just as important, as Shiny Shiny points out, it does so in style.

But if you're truly serious about securing your digital loved one, we suggest the old-school method: handcuffs.

Engadget Mobile and Business Week have reported that LG has two Windows Mobile 6 devices in the works, and one of them looks to be the uberstylish LG Prada phone that we mentioned awhile back. A "specially tweaked" interface is supposedly in the works for the touch screen phone, and the other device is apparently more "Chocolate-like." All this ranks rather high on the speculation meter, but we'll keep our radar up for more information.