One of the big stories of CTIA 2008 this week centers on the first look at the new Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 OS and so far, the general reaction has been mixed. Some bloggers appreciate the significant UI design improvement, but others are disappointed that its menus are still too complicated (it's a phone and has a small screen after all! Where is the finesse and simplicity?)

If the reaction is any indication of the future of the Windows Mobile platform, with the public's growing familiarity (and preference) for Apple's iPhone software and the specter of the Google Android project, Microsoft could be in trouble. Still, there are some positives worth discussing, since a good chunk of you are locked in to your plan and will likely get Windows Mobile 6.1 phones. Poor bastards.

Let's take a look:

• The main menu page interface is a big improvement visually but it's still crowded. Much larger icons push you quickly to e-mail, text messaging and Calendar and other options and are generally easier to access.

• For most touchscreen WinMo demos, menu navigation is still considered 'too full,' which means that people will be worried about being too precise with their touching. This means that there's still too much stuff on the screen. General consensus: Needs to be scrubbed clean.

Continue reading "CTIA 2008: Windows Mobile 6.1 Previewed to Mixed Reaction " »

With the CES junkfest fast-approaching, here's two bits of amusing trivia from a recent cellphone conference, rediscovered amid the dark bowels of iPhoto.

Continue reading "Remembering the Last Conference" »

Destroying people with a thought has never been so easy. The other inhabitant of NeuroSky's game-like 3D world collapses, dead, flattened by my psychic powers.

Continue reading "Hands-On (Or Brains-On) With NeuroSky Thought Control System " »

SAN FRANCISCO -- Declaring that mobility is the next frontier in social networking, Dustin Moscovitz introduced a BlackBerry-compatible version of Facebook's mobile social networking software on Wednesday, sharing the stage with RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.

Speaking at his keynote speech at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment expo, the social networking site's co-founder also said that Apple's iPhone SDK and the much-hypothesized entry of Google into the mobility market would make for an interesting 2008.

"Google is going to make a really big move by ... well, we really don't know," Moscovitz said, drawing laughter from the attendees. "But it's going to be big, and its going to be open."

Continue reading "Facebook Founder Expects Google To Storm Mobile Market in 2008" »

It's as if they knew! No sooner than we grumbled about the glossy, grease-attracting finish to the new BlackJack II, we chance across a burgundy-colored faux-leather edition, made from real vinyl crocodiles.

It'll be available at the same time as the black model, for the holiday season. Again, there's no official price yet, but it'll likely be in the $150 ballpark.

Continue reading "BlackJack II In Faux Leather" »

Here's a statistic that will interest CTIA attendees this morning: AT&T reports its profits up 41 percent, thanks principally to iPhone sales. From the New York Times:

"John Hodulik, an analyst with UBS, said that AT&T’s gross subscriber growth was particularly impressive considering that four out of five Americans already had cellphone service. AT&T took some market share from competitors during the quarter, he said. The company’s churn, or turnover rate, for customers under contract fell to 1.3 percent from 1.5 percent in the third quarter last year."

A RIM spokesperson told me yesterday that they'd seen a surge in sales thanks to the iPhone: it has changed customer expectations. Everyone wants a smartphone now, and will be happy to take, say, a BlackBerry Pearl if they don't want to splurge for the still-expensive Apple model.

The evidence is all over Samsung's BlackJack II. With its glossy paint job, it displays, in reflective sebacious smears, every human hand that touches it. And at CTIA, with its 15,000 visitors, that's a lot of grease.

Continue reading "BlackJack II Is Greased Lightning: Hands-On and Gallery" »

Getting to play with the Pocketsurfer2, a truly tiny GPRS web browsing handheld, is to experience ambivalence. On the one hand, it does what it does very well and with an absolute minimum of nonsense. On the other hand, it doesn't do anything else at all.

Costing $200 or so (there are always various deals) and requiring a $30 monthly data plan, the 640x240-resolution device offers up a super-fast proxied connection to the internet. The only downside to this seen in a brief hands-on test is the low quality of the proxied images and its inability to do streaming video (static flash stuff looked fine.)

It runs Zoho apps (and Google too), giving it a kind of semi-existence as a more capable computer, but it would be better if it actually had some native applications other than the browser.

High praise is deserved for something that compromises not a whit on design--it's wafer thin and looks startlingly futuristic--and which might one day be remembered as getting the headstart on a computing model that will eventually take over the world. But for now, it feels like thin client computing or using VNC: you don't quite feel there.

Continue reading "One Day, The PocketSurfer People Could Rule The World" »

DeviceAnywhere has a competitor, albeit one with only 12 frankenphones for developers to hook into to remotely test their applications.

Continue reading "Back Into The Mobile Matrix" »

Everyone at CTIA is an ad for Motricity--it bought the backside of the press badges--so chancing across its stand on the expo floor was like finding the thrumming hive of pure marketing that nestles at the show's heart, casting rainbows of love over the industry.

"We are a mobile content provider," one spokesperson was overheard to say. Pictured here is Motricity's Tim Tyndall in front of the ubiquitous and iconic Web 2.0-style logo, complete with a subtitle that looks suspiciously like the output of an online mission statement generator.

I'm going to see if I can get to Thursday without accidentally discovering what kind of "content" Motricity actually sells.

Qualcomm's MSM 7000-series chipsets, which include ATI Imageon graphics processors, are finally hitting stores inside smartphones like HTC's Touch and the AT&T Tilt. Pictured here is this chipset hooked up to a dance mat and a TV set, showing the amazing 3D gaming potential of the latest handsets.

The game, a test app made by Qualcomm itself, is called Dancegroove. That you can't yet buy either it or the control hookups is simply tragic--"We expect to see it used for navigation first," says spokesperson Anita Hix--but it's coming, and when it does, it'll be the best thing to happen to cellphones since multitouch fruit.

Titles are already on offer, of course, but they're getting better all the time, and the use of novel control systems using accelerometers, touch and other novel inputs will make all the difference.

Symbian makes operating systems, but had lots of nice (if not new) foreign phones on show at CTIA. Stout and beautiful, these Japanese phone sets are subject to the vicissitudes of a different society's mobile fashion trends.

And yet they're still just bloody telephones.

Continue reading "A Few Nice Japanese Phones Never Go Amiss" »

According to Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Lamborghini's latest offerings just don't have the Italian automaker's traditional "lunacy." The fact that you can now get them with Becker's GPS units is further illustration of this, perhaps -- for he who drives fast surely does not care where he is going. And get this: they even tell you to slow down when you exceed the speed limit!

Continue reading "The Part of a Gallardo That Really Matters" »

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show by picturing a world where our handsets anchor our public and private lives, acting as phones, general tech tools and even the dockable heart of desktop computing.

"The PC is the most powerful device, but the phone is the most popular device," Ballmer said. "It's the phone we can count on most people on the planet having."

Continue reading "Ballmer at CTIA: No Interest in Spectrum Auction" »

Tomorrow, the CTIA Wireless I.T and Entertainment conference begins in earnest. Much good will be there: new phones, cool ideas, and a concentrated, brain-warming bath of non-ionizing radiation. But much there will be vapor, the empty aspirations of dozens of near-identical mobile startups. Here are the five most depressing things about the marketroids' tea party.

Continue reading "Five Things We Love To Hate at CTIA" »

Before the show has even started, I've heard a phrase twice from two different companies, and believe I will hear it again a few times before the week is out.

"We've got a Facebook widget coming out shortly."

Dear mobile services industry people: it's never too late for you to escape/invent something worthwhile/kill yourselves. The world needs an entire ecosystem of social network parasite services the way it needs psoriasis and John Basedow DVDs.

Media Excel's mobile TV transducer does something very sexy. It transmutes any input into any streaming file format on-the fly, doing to Brady Bunch reruns what Jesus did with bread and fishes. Kind of. Sadly, however, the transducer isn't for consumers, but for broadcasters, though as a consumer, I can think of a lot of fun that could be had with it.

It is the first third-party MediaFLO device, for one thing, but its also capable of streaming out Windows Media Video, H.263/Quicktime, Flash video and more. Its makers claim it is 10 times faster at what it does than rival products.

I also learned that input sources for such devices are termed "The Ingest." Technology eats culture, again!

An idea is all it takes to make a business, and Noise Free Wireless's idea is to take standard noise-canceling technology and wed it to voice detection. Its software glues onto Skype and filters out everything that doesn't sound like a voice, without making you sound like Peter Frampton.

"That's pretty good," said writer Greg Harper, testing it at the pre-CTIA ShowStoppers do on Monday evening. "OK, I'm done now."

Cellular bannage is on the plate nationwide, and 31 states already won't let you talk while driving. This device is named Yada, an appropriately annoying moniker for something that allows you to carry on with a particularly annoying behavior. It is an all-in-one cellular charger, bluetooth kit and holster. It costs $60. Yay! Praise technology for such little revolutions.

Hitchcam, seen up close, is cool in its own practical way. It makes it possible to parallel park a Hummer, for example, or allow bus and 18-wheeler drivers to see what lurks behind. With a 7" LCD screen, it hooks up to a camera and an array of sensors via either bluetooth or the vehicle's own power lines.

The camera offers up to a 170-degree field of vision, and the sensors tell the driver how close they are to nearby objects. It all but parks itself.

On the other hand, it robs the world of its last good use for fresnel lenses, which is a tragedy.

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, CTIA is over and I’m a little more than anxious to get out of hot, muggy, arbitrarily located Orlando. (The basketball team is called the “Magic,” and I have no idea why.) As I’m waiting for my flight, I can’t help but get the sense of Déjà Vu. When the G-Lab crew left CES back in January, we all shared the same consensus: All anyone could talk about was the iPhone. And now, nearly four months later, little has changed. Samsung had a relatively minor hit with its dual faced UpStage, while Nokia quietly touted their N95 as a sort of thinking geek’s convergence device. But iPhone buzz just would not go away. Case in point: After checking out the impressive Shift at the HTC booth, one visitor remarked, “if it’s not running OSX, then I’m not really interested.” Sigh. My question is this: If the iPhone isn’t the holy grail of convergence devices, if it lets true believers or the converted down in any way shape or form, what will happen? Are we talking riots and structure fires down at One Infinite Loop? Or will the potential failure of the iPhone start a catastrophic chain reaction that ends with the space-time continuum collapsing on itself? Doomsday scenarios aside, for a deeper analysis of 2007 CTIA and the ripple effect Apple has made on the wireless industry check out Gadget Guru, Rob Beschizza’s report here.

You may be asking yourself, “What in the name of Judas Rockin’ Priest are former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush doing at delivering a keynote address at CTIA?” You’re right; they’re not exactly the biggest tech heads in the world. (Although Bush Sr. did bring out his BlackBerry admitting he was "hooked.”) Never the less, the two former Commanders in Chief were on hand to deliver Thursday’s keynote address in Orlando. Both were decked in bright pink ties, clearly playing off the Crocket and Tubbs theme. (We are in Florida, you know.) And yes, each ex-prez delivered what turned out to be eloquent, funny, and rather insightful speeches. Hit the jump for the full briefing.

Continue reading "CTIA Keynote 2007: Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush in da Hizzy!" »

OK, so we've looked at AMD's Imageon 3D chip for cellphones before; that headline pun, alas, demanded life. The chipmaker did have the thing on show this week at CTIA, however, giving the world its first look at mockup phones carrying the low-power gaming GPU.

Larger than normal phones and, apparently, having a "prototype look to them," the Imageon 238X was shown running a smooth-looking demo of Sudeki, an Xbox game, on a handset with a 320x240 screen. This reminds me of my 1996 Quake days. Imageon can also decode DVD-quality video and sends whatever it's doing to a picture-in-picture box when a call comes in. Sudeki at 80x60? Good luck!

AMD Imageon Powers Up Cellphone Graphics [PC Mag]

We’ve all been there—you move into a new place, get settled in, then try to use your cell phone. Maybe you live in a fringe area or maybe there’s just layer after layer of lead paint coating the walls, but the end result is the same: you can’t get a cell signal anywhere in the house. Calling your service provider doesn’t help; complaints fall on deaf, underpaid ears. Get a landline? Pfff, I don’t think so. What to do? Samsung to the rescue with the UbiCell! This cool little device is actually a CDMA femtocell base station that dramatically boosts the cell signal in your abode via the magic of broadband. Sprint has already agreed to start selling the UbiCell later in ’07 but hasn’t said how much it will run for.

Oh and don’t even think fleeing the country with the UbiCell. An internal GPS function will lock you out of the device if you try to use it  anywhere outside the US, like say, your New Zealand mountain fortress.

Okay, that headline was a bit mean but I did get to play around with this iClone for a few hot minutes even though it wasn’t actually functioning. Samsung assured me, though that this mock-up of the F700 is identical in size, weight, and feel to the production version. Like the much-maligned Prada phone, the F700 features a touch sensitive screen, but unlike Prada’s offering, it’s also a slider that includes a full Qwerty keyboard for texting/dialing/menu navigation. It’s physically smaller than you would think, a bit heavy, and the Qwerty keypad smoothly and effortlessly slides with the flick of a thumb. Not bad overall, but I’d slap my own Grandmother right now for a working model. (Just kidding, Grannie. I would throw you down some steps for an iPhone though.) Most sources point to a late Q3 release for the handset, which is interesting since the iPhone will probably be released sometime before the F700 actually hits shelves.

Continue reading "CTIA 2007: Hands On with Samsung’s (dummy) iPhone Challenger " »

At 10 in the morning, this kind bartender at the FlexLine booth was generous enough to offer me a complimentary pint of ale. Why this isn’t the most popular spot on the showroom floor, I’ll never know. (For the record, I did take a rain check on the suds, although after posting all day long, I’m starting to regret that.) Also of note: Look how much money is in the tip jar already. These industry tradeshows can be a lot harder than people think.

A comrade at LG just gave me some quick, dirty time with the Prada Phone in a hushed away corner of the showroom floor. (I didn’t even have a chance to take a proper picture!) Strangely enough, this iPhone-esque device is nothing like the rushed together mess I thought it would be. The screen is actually proficient and beautiful while the touch sensitive controls are responsive with no real lag. Texting on the phone is a tad difficult using your fingers, probably a bit more easy with a stylus. The chassis itself is slick, black, and much lighter than it looks like it should be. It just seems so strange that no US carriers want to pick this device up. There has to be some style-obsessed technophiles out there that would just kill for a handset like this. Or at least maim.

We secretly make fun of the people who bust out their tablet PCs on the subway like it’s something to do. Maybe not after seeing the HTC Shift. This über portable is about as cool and unpretentious as a rig can get. (Well, at least as cool and unpretentious as a rig running Vista Business can be.) Besides be no bigger than a couple of CD cases, the Shift rocks a full QWERTY keypad, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, and WMP 11. It’s also truly mobile thanks to the Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/Edge and Tri-Band UMTS/HSDPA functionality; you can literally take this puppy anywhere you want on the planet. And the Shift actually looks aesthetically pleasing—dude, just check out the 7-inch LCD screen. HTC was friendly but incredibly tight-lipped about some of the nitty-gritty specs on the Shift and they didn’t let us (or anyone else for that matter) touch it. No biggie. We’ll be getting our paws on one later on this year, and when we do, expect us to roll up our sleeves and really put the spurs to it.

This wee slider is among the better CDMA phones released by Motorola yesterday. I managed to fondle it for the better part of a half hour while a Motorola PR rep looked awkwardly away. It was a weird moment. (To her credit, she did hold the Z6m while I photographed it—even after the groping. Thanks Jennifer!) But the phone itself? Sexified. It’s thin and narrow, but the keypad is amazingly uncramped; completely out of character for a phone of this size—especially a slider. Menu functions are well set up with graphics that are bright and colorful but not obnoxious. And the Z6m’s music player is not bad either. It’s fairly intuitive and easy to use. Plus Motorola claims that synching it up with one of their new Bluetooth headsets is simple. We’ll see about that when we get one of these in the Lab and put it through some tests so intense, we'll have to smoke a cigarette afterwards.   

The W385 and W355 handsets are the last two CDMA phones Motorola unleashed today. Let’s see what’s the best one word term to describe both of these guys? “Meh” just keeps coming to mind. These are both strictly utilitarian devices with minimalist approaches. Although the W385 includes Bluetooth and GPS while the W355 has an FM receiver, both models are rather uninspired retreads of previous Motorola handsets yet should feel right at home in the pockets of inane rednecks and clueless soccer moms who don’t need their phones to do much besides speed dial the bail bondsman and/or KFC.

Meet the MOTORAZR maxx Ve, one of four new CDMA handsets just released by Motorola. I managed to get a little face time with a fully functional maxx Ve today. Initial impressions? Surprisingly un-RAZR-like. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The rubberized paint made for a more substantial, tactile feel, while the EVDO functionality guarantees greased lightning multimedia downloads. The best part, though? The touch sensitive media control buttons on the front of the clamshell. As we all know from countless viewings of the Matrix, human beings emit a slight electrical charge. The buttons adorning the front of the mxx Ve read the bioelectricity from your fingertips and respond in kind. And responsive they are! The keys work perfectly with no pronounceable lag or hesitation. Added bonus: If a zombie ever gets a hold of your maxx Ve headset, his lack of a biorhythm ensures he won’t be able to operate it. Of course, if the undead are playing with your cell phone you’ve probably got other problems to deal with.

For all you non-believers and Nokia playa haters out there, here’s a bitter, bitter pill to swallow: Not only is the Nokia N95 hitting North American shores, but so is its swankier, more stylish cousin, the N76. Does it resemble a RAZR? Hell yes. Does it act like one though? Hell no. This delicious alternative to Motorola’s populist handset offers up the vastly superior Symbian OS, a huge 2.4-inch, 16 million color display, a 2.0 megapixel camera, and worldwide connectivity. And if it’s anything like previous N-Series devices, it’ll have an nigh inexhaustible battery life.

This handset may not include Wi-Fi, but that’s no problem. The N76 is still 3G compatible which means data streams in and out of it like hot buttery goodness. When it finally becomes available in late Q2 or early Q3 you’ll be able to select the handset in either jet black or deep red finishes. Not a bad reward for those who always had faith.

Spinners, hydraulics, lift kits, Playstation 3s on the engine block, LCDs in the fender well liners. Amateurish, really. Nokia is taking aim at a slightly more tech savvy modder with its CK-20W car kit. The version we peeped was installed in a powder blue Mustang GT, and synced up seamlessly with a Bluetooth enabled phone (it doesn't matter if it's Nokia or not) in order to transmit stored audio over the vehicle’s speaker system.

If someone calls, the player automatically pauses the song so you can answer the phone hands free over the car’s speaker system. The kit also includes a 3.5 mm jack for hard-wired media players as well as an intuitively designed, non-intrusive controller. Nokia also felt it necessary to install Bluetooth enabled devices in every other nook and cranny in the vehicle. Hit the jump to see more Nordic inspired auto-erotica.

Continue reading "CTIA 2007: Nokia Pimping Your Ride With Finnish Sensibility" »

Pictured above is Texas Instruments' tiniest DLP projector yet, on show publicly for the first time over at CTIA 2007. The 1.3" device is small enough, allegedly, to be included in cellphones, using three lasers to generate a widescreen image claimed to be DVD quality (which would be 480 pixels on the y).

Me, I'm thinking light graffiti. I'm thinking permanent installation in the kitchen to "edit" the color and texture of white fittings and appliances. I'm thinking handheld, portable gaming. But, to be perfectly honest, I'm not thinking "in my phone."

DLP, which TI is pushing like an urban drug, now accounts for half the projector market, according to their DLP products chief in Asia, Eric Braddom. The technology is great, but remember all the fuss about projected keyboards? Those things have been out for years, and no-one buys them. People don't want their portacruft to require an adjacent large, flat, evenly-colored plane if it is to be fully functional.

TI demos its movie projector in a phone [CNet]

The floor at CTIA is abuzz with what’s becoming the darling of show: Samsung’s UpStage music phone. Dual screens, a kick ass music player, and thinner than a super model chugging ipecac. What’s not to love about this potential iPhone challenger? Wired got its hands on one a while ago and tested every single nuance the device had to offer. Our verdict? While the UpStage’s design and functionality is actually pretty cool, we did have a problem with the touch sensitive “sweep” control system, weak camera, and anemic sub three-hour talk time. It’s not bad, but definitely not the wireless savior some are touting it to be.

For more info, take a look at our exclusive review of the Samsung UpStage.

The W580 slider is sharper, cleaner, and much prettier than previous generation Walkman phones. Oh and it’s thin too. Like freakish Olsen twin thin at 14mm. Included will be a 512 MB Memory Stick Micro for cramming your music onto as well as a proficient 2.0-megapixel camera. Want to listen to your tunes as you “attempt” to train for that marathon? Dandy fitness apps will track your running speed (or lack thereof) and distance traveled. Plus it just looks cool. Check out the ethereal glow the phone emits. I mean, who wouldn’t want to just bust this out at a party and say, “Oh yes I just clocked in a 3:22:57 marathon time.” Which of course, is a total lie. Look for the W580 to be released sometime in early Q3.

Sometime in early April, Sprint Nextel customers will be able to download some 1.5 million songs to their handsets for, you guessed it, 99 cents a pop. Music from the sonic catalogues of EMI, Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal will be available in addition to music from thousands of other independent labels. Sorry no Beatles but plenty of Michael Bolton. The requirements? You’ll need to have a Sprint Power Vision data plan to take advantage of the dollar per song price point plus a compatible phone, you know, like an UpStage. But this new music inclusive data package will also include 10 commercial free radio stations, and a bevy of video channels. Music, commercial free radio, video programming plus the release of a hot looking handset that blurs the line between cellphone and magical all-in-one device. Does any of this sound familiar yet?

Motorola extends mass market phone range [Reuters]
The story is shorter and more to-the-point than the headline. "Motorola has released the W360, W380 and W395, which run on the AJAR software framework." The W-series is pictured above.

Qualcomm CEO not optimistic about Nokia talks [Reuters]
CEO Paul Jacobs turns the thumbscrews on Nokia, which would probably very much like to renew its licensing agreements with chipmaker and patent house Qualcomm.

PlayStation breaks sales records [BBC]
An analyst claims that the PS3 is the fastest-selling console in the U.K., with 165,000 sold in two days. the XBox and Nintendo sold 71k and 105k respectively. It'll be interesting to see how Sony frames this: they've habitually claimed that the ubiquitous availability of their console in America is due not to poor sales but to the excellence of their logistics. Will PS3's high sales in England be put down as excellent sales or simply Sony's ability to get lots of boxes in stores?

Blog death threats spark debate [BBC]
A prominent blogger has shut down her blog and cancelled public appearances following internet death threats. Reporters and writers get death threats all the time: ignore it, lady, it's hot air. It's the internet, full of mouthy, anonymous idiots.

Yahoo creating mobile ad network [IHT]
You are Transjordan and Yahoo is Churchill: The divvying-up of your cellphone by advertisers is happening as if you have no say in the matter. Here's a quote, just to remind you who matters to them: "We are being very aggressive on mobile and moving extremely fast to get the building blocks in place," said Steve Boom, Yahoo's senior vice president for broadband and mobile. "We felt that business services for publishers is something that was lacking."

Randall Stephenson, AT&T; CEO and, one would assume, something of a geek, just 'fessed up at his CTIA keynote to having never used the iPhone, according to reports from the show. It's probably not so— he's just wanting to show off the user interface under the pretence of being a noob—but he also revealed that Cingular Wireless has received about a million requests for info on Apple's phone.

"One million people have asked us to call when this phone is available," Stephenson said.

Cingular, which is being absorbed into the gelatinous metahive of AT&T;'s mobile operations unit, has an exclusive on the iPhone and will begin selling it in June. Danny Dumas will have more from the show: follow Wired's coverage here.

AT&T; says received 1 mln inquiries on iPhone [Reuters]

Now, don’t get us wrong, we like our portables to glint and sparkle right out of the package. But the veneer on the Z750? Blinding. As in get your shades on; don’t look directly at it in the sunlight blinding. (Yep, that's my reflection in each picture.)  But hey, way cool specs on this handset. Not only is it Sony E.’s first offering of a HSDPA enabled phone in North America, it also packs a 2.0 megapixel camera, and Push Email capabilities. For all you mobloggers who need to do lightning fast posts and an object that can be used to signal low flying aircraft, your handset has arrived. 

What is an EDA? An EDA is an Enterprise Digital Assistant, AT&T;'s phrase to describe the Motorola MC35, a "PDA-like" phone that has on-board GPS, WiFi and BlueTooth. Other features include location-based services (though there's no indication what they are) and Push To Talk.

And that's it! It's all business, this MC35, with the press release going on about "mobile resource management, field service and sales force automation." It's actually a pretty dreadful press release, as it doesn't tell you the MC35 is a capable BlackBerry rival offering a QWERTY keyboard, Windows Mobile 5, EDGE/GPRS/GPS, a 2.8" screen, user-accessible SDIO card and a ruggedized case.

Press Release [AT&T;]

Product Page [Motorola]

Alas, the Apple iPhone is still months away. While you're waiting, why not check out Samsung's UpStage, one of the niftiest music-oriented cell phones running, but not one without its flaws. The innovative design takes some getting used to: At first blush the phone is a standard candy bar handset with a very small LCD. But turn it over and you'll find a larger, 2.1-inch LCD and a set of media player controls. Pressing a special button tells the phone which side you're using (only one face works at a time). As a phone, the UpStage works perfectly well, and music sounds excellent, but we never got the hang of the temperamental touch-sensitive "sweep" control system.  —Christopher Null

WIRED Ultra-portable at a nearly-Nano-sized 2.7 ounces and 4 x 1.8 x 0.4 inches. Excellent audio output; handles a wide variety of music formats and offers a decent 10.5 hours of playing time. Striking appearance really turns heads.

TIRED Included 64MB microSD card is essentially useless. Weak talk time at under 3 hours. Touchy controls require lots of practice and patience. Proprietary headphone connector juts out the side. Repeated problems trying to access memory card. Difficult to achieve clear photos, despite its 1.3-megapixel camera.

$149 with a two-year Sprint contract, samsung.com

For even more new phones, check out our ongoing CTIA coverage on Gadget Lab.

Every party sees people who turn up early, hoping to get the first slice of cake and the best booze, and trade shows are no exception: press releases and product announcements already all over the place. If I was CTIA, I'd make them put out the chairs and get the plastic cups from the pantry. Especially Danny, who's already got his mitts on that $500 Nokia N95 everyone wants.

Sony-Ericsson let the W580 Walkman out of the bag a day early, an orangey quad-band slider phone (but no qwerty) with music in mind. 14mm thick and offering a distinctive design, it's not much a phone aside from the music functions, with a 2mp camera and not much else. The music features are surprisingly complete, however, with an FM radio, pedometer, stereo bluetooth and assured functionality as a plain-jane mass storage device: none of that oldschool Sony proprietary transcode-'n'-sync software required. It also comes with a "free" 512Mb memory stick. Also coming is their Z750 HSDPA Handset.

One annoying thing about my MacBookPro is the lack of a PC card slot. Smartcards being expensive, next time I get to head out to a show in person, I'll be grabbing a usb cellular modem. Sierra announced a new one today, the AirCard 595U, which they'll be showing off later this week.

Other things already announced include the HTC Advantage, Pantech's new range and Alltel's new handsets, which will mostly come from LG.

Sony Ericsson Launches W580 Walkman Slider [mobileburn]

CTIA 2007: Sierra Announces USB Dongle For Sprint [Gearlog]

Nokia N95 Coming Stateside [Gizmodo]

CTIA 2007 report: The pre-show announcements [InfoSync]

So the N95 is a bit old hat. We swooned at its announcement in September and salivated over it at CES, but we’ve never really been able to play with one before without a horde of slack jawed wireless geeks breathing down our necks. Big thanks to Sami Seppä of Nokia for giving me a no-pressure hands on with the device. This phone smartphone/ multimedia computer is awesome. 5-megapixel camera, video out, 802-11g Wi-Fi, 3G compatible, and much, much, much lighter than a gadget this size and with these specs should be. Allegedly, the N95 will be ready to rock stateside this April. We’ll have more on the device plus a surprise or two from Nokia tomorrow live from the showroom floor.

CTIA Wireless, the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association's annual spring show, fires up in Florida tomorrow with boxloads of new mobile technology.

Wired's Danny Dumas will be in town to see what's on offer, and he'll be posting the best gear from the show floor, open from March 27-29 at Orange County Convention Center. Got something you'd like us to check out? Is there a phone you've heard about and want to see a photo of? Tip us off using the comments form on this post, and we'll get Danny on the case.

Now, CTIA's been a little dull in times past — bored reporters and meta-coverage can be the rule— but this time there's plenty of cool stuff  we're looking forward to getting a closer look at:

• Helio's Ocean
• Nokia' N95 (another dual-slider!)
• Sony-Ericsson's new Walkman phones
• HTC Ameo's North American counterpart, the Shift
• There'll also be lots of USB, PC Card and smartcard cellular modems like Sierra's latest AirCard.

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When King Canute ordered the ocean to stop crashing on the beach, he was making a point about the limits of human power for his idiot courtiers' benefit. Instead of that extravagant setpiece, he could have just battered them around the head, Naomi Campbell-style, with Helio's Ocean phone.

Our interest in the smartphone rests in its dual-slide keyboard, which pops out as a qwerty when dragged out sideways and a numeric keypad when pulled lengthways. It's otherwise a modern model, offering EVDO, GPS, MS Exchange integration, all the IM networks and built-in Google maps. For music, it PlaysForSure that Microsoft DRM and comes with 200MB of internal flash storage, enough for 50 songs or so. The deal is rounded out with a 2mp digicam and Bluetooth, but no WiFi.

Helio is one of those newfangled meta operators that runs virtually on top of a real cellular network. Helio does the meta dance on Sprint and Alltel's networks, if memory serves, and was set up by Earthlink to get these fancy Korean phones into the west.

In stores this summer, for $300. Read the press release for details, or go to the high-bandwidth, Flash-intensive product page to watch the Ocean zoom around the page and enter a contest to win one.