Dialed In

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.

Motorola Droid

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Shortly after we posted our Motorola Droid review, we received quite a few e-mails from CNET readers who were concerned about the phone's inability to support hands-free voice commands and dialing. Indeed, the readers were correct and Motorola's support forums continue to buzz with user complaints regarding the issue.

As part of our original Droid review we did not test whether the handset supported hands-free voice dialing. We apologize for that, but we've now updated the review to reflect our findings.

Below is the passage from the review:

Unfortunately, the Droid does not support Bluetooth voice dialing or commands. In order to use the Voice Dialer feature, you first must select the icon from the main menu (you can move on a shortcut to the home screen). After speaking your command, you then must confirm it via a prompt on the touch screen. Though we found the voice dialing feature to be quite accurate--it successfully picked up a command when we were a few feet away--it is not an ideal scenario for people who need to completely hands-free. We hope this omission is corrected in a future software update.

In the future, we will report on hands-free voice dialing in our smartphone reviews. As more state and local areas pass laws mandating hands-free driving, such capability will only grow more important.

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)

Casio G'zOne Rock

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

After seeing the Casio G'zOne Brigade at the Verizon Wireless event a few weeks ago, we had thought that would be the only G'zOne product we would see for a while. It turns out Casio and Verizon have been working on yet another rugged phone, and it's the Casio G'zOne Rock, which looks a lot like a successor to the G'zOne Boulder.

Along with an exterior that is MIL-STD-180F certified to withstand the elements (water, shock, dust, humidity, salt fog, solar radiation, altitude, high and low temperatures), the G'zOne Rock is even more of an outdoorsman tool than its predecessors. It now has G'zGear software that operates in six modes: Earth Compass, Walking Counter, Thermometer, Astro Calendar (provides the moon's age and days until a full/new moon), Sunrise Sunset (shows the current time and position of the sun, and times for sunrises and sunsets), and Tides (shows the tidal graph and time of tides, plus the best time for fishing).

Other features include Push to Talk, EV-DO Rev. A, a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder with flash, microSD card storage up to 16GB, support for V Cast videos and V Cast Music with Rhapsody, and stereo Bluetooth. The sub-display on the phone has touch controls for the music player.

The Casio G'zOne Rock will be available in matte black for $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service agreement. You can buy it online starting November 20, or you can buy it in Verizon stores starting November 30.

A leaked screenshot of the HTC Passion?

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

We've seen the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris from Verizon Wireless so far, but apparently there is a third Verizon Android handset waiting in the wings, if rumors are to be believed.

Rumors are that it will be the HTC Passion, which is supposedly powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon chipset (the Passion might also be called the Dragon). The rumor mill (from Boy Genius, Phone Arena, and elsewhere) claims that the HTC Passion will feature a 5-megapixel camera, a large WVGA-resolution screen with multitouch, a 3.5mm headset jack, 256MB RAM, and it's said to run Android 2.0 with the HTC Sense overlay.

We have heard nothing about this through official channels, so this is strictly rumor territory here, but we can't help but be intrigued by this mythical phone. The Android 2.0 with multitouch and the Snapdragon processor certainly puts it just a notch above the Droid. Perhaps that's why Verizon is keeping mum about the device for now. Still, the rumor mill claims we'll see an announcement about the Passion/Dragon in mid-December, so we'll definitely keep an eye for that.

LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 in hand

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Perhaps the biggest letdown of the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 from Verizon Wireless is that it's not the LG Chocolate BL40. After getting teased for months by the sexy shots of the LG BL40, we thought there might be a chance we would see it stateside. Alas, the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 looks nothing like its European cousin. In fact, the touch-screen interface reminds us a lot of previous LG touch screen handsets, like the LG enV Touch for example. The geometric shapes on the back of the phone and the bloblike buttons underneath the display are about the only things that are unique about the phone's design.

Still, that doesn't mean the Touch VX8575 is a terrible phone. Continuing the Chocolate tradition of strong music features, the Chocolate Touch VX8575 has a great music player with Dolby Music equalizer settings (both manual and preset modes), an FM radio, and an integrated song ID feature. There's also a really fun "Join the Band" feature that gives you either a virtual drum kit or a scrolling 88-key keyboard to play along with your tunes. The drum kit even has a cowbell, which we found amusing.

That, and it has a nice 3.2-megapixel camera, EV-DO Rev. 0, V Cast video access, stereo Bluetooth, and a 3.5mm headset jack. We weren't big fans of the full HTML browser--you have to keep going back to a URL-entry page to enter URLs, for example--but it's otherwise a decent touch-screen music phone from Verizon Wireless. The LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 is $79.99 with a two-year service agreement with Verizon Wireless.

Read our full review of the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575

(Credit: MobileBurn)

Aside from the bevy of new Verizon phones announced Thursday morning, the latest Casio G'zOne was also shown off at the 2009 Verizon holiday event in New York.

The Casio G'zOne Brigade is the latest in Casio's line of rugged handsets, and this one comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, so it also makes the grade as the company's first rugged messaging phone. Like all the other Casio G'zOne handsets, the Brigade is MIL-STD-810F-certified to withstand the elements--water, dust, shock, vibration, and more.

It also features a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, a document viewer for Microsoft Office files, a text-to-speech feature, a speakerphone, EV-DO, and Verizon's suite of services that includes VZ Navigator, V Cast Video, and V Cast Music with Rhapsody. No word on pricing or availability just yet, but we'll keep you posted.

HTC Droid Eris

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

When it rains it pours. On Thursday, Verizon Wireless opened the floodgates and unleashed a handful of cell phones and smartphones that should make their way into your hands just in time for the holiday shopping season. It looks like there's a little something for everyone, so let us know which you are most excited about in our comments section.

Here is a roundup of all of today's news:

Verizon's Droid Eris offers Android for less
Verizon introduces BlackBerry Curve 8530
LG Chocolate Touch is now official
Samsung's Convoy goes rugged
Verizon offers prepaid wireless for laptops

Samsung Convoy

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

Verizon isn't just about smartphones today. The country's largest carrier also unveiled the Samsung Convoy. Clad in a tough shell with rubber sidings, the Convoy is certified to meet the usual military specifications for vibration, humidity, temperature extreme, dust, shock, solar radiation, and altitude. On the front flap of the charcoal gray flip phone you'll find a speaker, camera lens, external display, and the dedicated music controls.

Feature are solidly midrange. You get Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera, messaging, a personal organizer, support for Verizon's push-to-talk network, a speakerphone, messaging, and GPS with access to VZ Navigator. Verizon is also promising "extended battery life," but we don't yet know exactly what that will be.

The Convoy will be available November 15 for $49.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate.