Should Sprint Drop the Palm Treo Pro With the Palm Pre On Its Way?

Sprint has taken their sweet time pushing out the Windows Mobile 6.1 Palm Treo Pro—but with the Palm Pre on its way, is the Pro even worth releasing at this point?

Zune on Windows Mobile Confirmed by Steve Ballmer

Microsoft's Ballmer has just confirmed that Zune software will be coming to Windows Mobile devices as well as other phones, as sort of a really late follow-up to Robbie Bach's comments on the same subject. Ballmer goes one step further than Robbie, who just made vague comments on the platform, and said this: More »

Palm Treo Pro Now Shipping

Today is a good day for Palm fans because the 3G-equipped, touchscreen Treo Pro is hitting the street for $550. Again, rumor has it that it could come to AT&T at a subsidized price in December, but if you want to get the unlocked version, now is the time. [Palm]

Velocity Mobile 103 Smartphone Gets UK Launch Date, Pricing

We mentioned the Velocity 103 back in April, giving it a Q2 launch date. It looks like there've been a few delays to Velocity Mobile's entry to the smartphone market though, since the device is only now on pre-sale, with availability at the end of this month. It's a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device, featuring a proprietary "Velocity Over The Air" updating system to add functionality, Bluetooth, touchscreen and trackball control, and TV/VGA-out to connect to your TV. Its September launch is in the UK, where it costs a whopping $569, but there's no info no when it'll hit the US. [TheInquirer]

Download Samsung BlackJack II's Windows Mobile 6.1 Update Now

The BlackJack II (SGH-i617) finally gets its turn to ride the Windows Mobile 6.1 bus, which brings to it slight UI changes, better SMS threading, improved GPS navigation and internet connection sharing. There's little reason why you shouldn't get it, so download it now and join the 6.1 club. [Samsung]

HTC Tilt Windows Mobile 6.1 Update Actually Out

That Windows Mobile 6.1 update we showed you last week when it was supposed to be out is now officially out (according to HTC). Grab it now. [HTC] More »

HTC Touch Diamond Shows Up on FCC With US 3G Specs

Like the sun rising or your prostate swelling to grapefruit sizes, the HTC Touch Diamond showing up on the FCC site was an inevitability. It's not like we didn't know it was coming, but seeing for ourselves that it exists and has the proper US-based 3G HSDPA capabilities is always good. Now all that's left is to wait for someone to release it for realsies. If you've already got an imported Touch Diamond, you can add 850MHz support to it via a software update. [FCC via Engadget]

HTC Touch Pro Gets Fondled, But That Doesn't Turn It On

The guys over at Phone Mag managed to get their hands on the HTC Touch Pro "Raphael" and its sweet slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Unfortunately, there was no battery and the device could not be turned on—but no significant changes are expected on that front over the previous Touch handset. All in all, Phone Mag felt that the device would satisfy HTC owners and keyboard lovers alike. More »

Treo 800W Heading to Sprint on July 13th for $600

We already know plenty about the upcoming WM 6.1 powered Treo 800W, but if a leak obtained by Phone Arena is correct, the device will be available to corporate customers starting on July 9th, with the general public following four days later. It will also be priced at $599 without commitments. [Phone Arena via Electronista]

Qik's Cellphone Video Broadcasting App Coming to Windows Mobile

Qik's been doing live video streaming (think live YouTube) from Nokia S60 cellphones for a few months now, but Mobilecrunch has the scoop that they're expanding to Windows Mobile phones shortly. The support and partnership will be officially announced next week at Tech-Ed, which will give WM users the ability to stream stuff like concerts and their wives giving birth (it's happened) direct from their handhelds. Qik's also thinking about the new iPhone, of course, but that's pending whatever features get announced next week. [Mobile Crunch via Crunchgear]

Semi-Official Sprint Mogul Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM Leaked

This isn't the final official version of the Sprint Mogul Windows Mobile 6.1 firmware update—which probably means that it shouldn't be called "official"—but it has been leaked on WinMo dev sites. New features are Sprint TV, a larger Start Menu, speedier response and of course, Windows Mobile 6.1. If you're really dying for new features on your phone you can download and install it now, otherwise we'd wait until the final version is available within the next month or so. [PPC Geeks via WMExperts via Boy Genius]

Giga-Byte GSmart Windows Mobile Phones Have a Fancy Smart Touch UI

It took a year for Giga-Byte to follow in HTC's footsteps, but the upcoming GSmart Windows Mobile smartphones will have a brand new UI on top of the standard WinMo affair. The interface is called "Smart Touch," and will be more finger-friendly—more oriented toward gestures and finger-navigation—lending itself to launching your commonly used programs directly from the home screen. The Chinese version of this has been available since April, but suffers from some incompatibility issues that most likely won't be in the European release version coming sometime after May. [The Unwired via Into Mobile]

HTC Launching Most Important Product of the Year Next Month

The Taipei times quotes HTC's own financial executive Cheng Hui-ming at an investor's conference as saying they will launch "the most important product for HTC this year" at an event on May 6. Cheng wasn't too forthcoming with details, but it seems like it's going to be a "Touch" phone—as in one of the HTC Touch models—and be called the "Diamond". He says that it's going to be so good, he's "confident of landing orders from most major carriers," but warned about possible delays because they haven't gotten certification for the phone yet. Sounds very interesting. Could it be this phone? [Taipei Times via Engadget]

TouchBrowser Brings iPhone Finger-Flicking Browsing to Windows Mobile

Desktop-like browsing is already headed to Windows Mobile in version 6.1, but can you use your finger with it? Like on the iPhone? Not exactly. For that, you'll have to install TouchBrowser. Along with being able to pan around a page to get your Britney Spears news with your finger, there's even a proprietary onscreen keyboard that takes up almost the entire display. Would you pay $14.95 for this? Only if you're building the world's lamest iPhone replica on your HTC Touch. [Makayama]

Velocity Mobile Enters Windows Mobile Smartphone Market With 103, 111

Does the world need yet another company making Windows Mobile phones? Maybe, maybe not, but Velocity Mobile is doing it anyway with their Velocity 103 (left) and 111 (right) smartphones. Both are running Windows Mobile 6.1 and will launch in Q2 and Q3 respectively. What's this have to do with Mr. T? You can't spell Velocity without T, fool. Plus Mr. T likes smartphones. More »

More Windows Mobile 6.1 Features: New Camera UI, AT&T Video Share, Albums

Boy Genius has a few more details to add to the tons we already know about Windows Mobile 6.1. There's going to be AT&T Video Share support, an "albums" feature, Windows Live integration (uploading, blogging perhaps, which was already supported before with a Windows Live web client), an updated camera UI and TV out. We've already seen TV out on various i-Mate devices, but the other stuff seems both new and welcome. Who's going to turn down an updated camera UI when the current one sucks so hard? [Boy Genius]

Windows Mobile 6.1 Homebrew ROM For Sprint Mogul

More Windows Mobile 6.1 news! This time a patched and spliced together "6.1" release for the Sprint Mogul by the people on PPCGeeks and XDA-Deelopers has been released, so if you want to get in on the 6.1 action before it's officially available, here it is. [PPCGeeks via Boy Genius]

More Windows Mobile 6.1 Details Leaked in Screenshots

The Portugeuse forum Pocketpt.net has a few more exclusive shots of Windows Mobile 6.1 that you haven't already seen before. The shots focus once again on the "Standard" version, which is the non-touchscreen variety, but show off the Deepfish-like browsing that lets you zoom and scroll around on a page. There's also the ability to check how much memory an app takes, or remove an app entirely from the "Managed Programs" section. Check out more shots at Pocketpt. [Pocketpt via Electronista]

Samsung's Flagship i900 Windows Mobile Phone Leaked in Color

The first leak of Samsung's supposed flagship Windows Mobile phone was leaked a few weeks ago in black and white, but this time we've got a picture in color of what the touchscreen device is going to look like. More »

More Treo 800w Details Possibly Leaked

There's been a slow trickle of details on the upcoming Treo 800w, but this poster on WMExpert's forums seems to know a little more than everyone else about the phone. He says the 800w will look like a Palm Centro with rounded corners and thin body. It will ship with Windows Mobile 6, but be upgradeable to 6.1 when that hits. More »

Samsung i900 Touchscreen Phone with Gesture Control?

Word on the street is that Samsung is developing the i900 — a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device complete with a touchscreen. However, unlike the F490, the i900 is expected to feature a full-fledged touchscreen that could include iPhone-esque gesture controls. More »

Vodaphone's Palm Drucker is Short on Images, High on Specs

A leaked slide from Vodaphone's 2008 roadmap lists a new Palm device codenamed "Drucker" as the successor to the Treo 750v. Features include: quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, tri-band UMTS/HSDPA, Windows Mobile 6.1, a full QWERTY keyboard, 2 megapixel camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.0 — all powered by a 1500mAh battery. If you use your imagination you can almost see it. Set for a July 2008 launch for around ₤270 or $530. [Boy Genius]

Windows Mobile 6.1 Video Walk-through

Following up on the Windows Mobile 6.1 details and pictures, Boy Genius has a video walk-through of the latest Microsoft Mobile OS. If you can hear the guy's voice over the music (we had a hard time), he says it's AT&T branded, so it'll definitely hit AT&T some time early next year. (You may want to mute the sound, since that's all he says.) The responsiveness seems to be about the same as current versions, but we'll have to wait until we get our hands on it to make sure. [Boy Genius]

More Windows Mobile 6.1 Details

BGR has an update to the Windows Mobile 6.1 details we showed you earlier in the week, showing off some more improvements that make us excited for WinMo again. Besides the Vista-esque home screen that you saw last time, there's a new font, zooming, and copy/paste in IE, process list and CPU usage in the task manager, a Wi-Fi indicator, and auto-configuring ActiveSync for your emails. They may not sound like much by themselves, but if you put them all together you'll see that Windows Mobile is heading in the right direction—into our pants. [Boy Genius Report]

Windows Mobile 6.1 Has Streamlined Today Screen, More Improvements

The Windows Mobile successor we told you about last week seems to have gotten a tentative name (Windows Mobile 6.1), and Boy Genius has an illustrated guide to some of the new features you can find. Among them are a sideways scrolling home screen that gets rid of the cluttered Today page you have now, threaded SMS, recent programs in the Start Menu, and an auto-completing To: field in emails and SMS. This all sounds pretty delicious, so much so that we're actually getting excited about using Windows Mobile again. Either that or we've sniffed one too many white-erase markers this morning. Or one too few. [Boy Genius]

Rumor: Windows Mobile 6.1 Coming in February

The original story's been pulled, but pocketinfo.nl had an interesting rumor about a possible Windows Mobile 6.1 coming next February at 3GSM. The supposed new features are a "carousel" UI where you scroll left and right for features, as well as other small fixes. There shouldn't be anything spectacular in a point release, and any mindblowing changes to Windows Mobile will be coming in Windows Mobile 7 sometime possibly late next year. In any case, file this under interesting rumor. [Pocketinfo via WMExperts]