Sprint debuts Sanyo Innuendo

Though it's now property of Kyocera, the Sanyo brand continues to live on at the carrier it has called home for many years. Sprint today announced the Sanyo Innuendo, a messaging-friendly handset with a full QWERTY keyboard.

An update to last year's Sanyo Incognito, the Innuendo borrows heavily from its predecessor's design. On the outside, there's a touch keypad with vibrating feedback and a small external display that's hidden when the backlight is off. We weren't huge fans of that arrangement on the Incognito, but we're willing to give it a second chance here. The Innuendo also flips open on a side hinge to reveal a 2.8-inch WQVGA display and the messaging keyboard.

The Innuendo's feature set is midrange, but it bumps up the camera resolution from 2 to 3.2 megapixels. Other goodies include integrated social-networking apps, a proximity sensor, and MP3 player, a microSD card slot (a 1GB card comes in the box), threaded text messaging, GPS, messaging and e-mail, speaker-independent voice dialing, support for 3G (EV-DO) networks, stereo Bluetooth, a speakerphone, and a personal organizer.

You can buy the Incognito for $49.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate. We'll have a review in the next few days.