Nokia's aging Symbian S60 OS isn't maturing so well, as seen on their N97 handset, and though they've made some positive strides with Maemo, it sounds like they might be limiting themselves to those two OSes—at least until the market forces them elsewhere. On the other hand, the "No Android" statement was pretty obvious.

The Moment is a fairly slick-looking device, quite thin for a full QWERTY slider and with an inoffensive black and silver design with a nice silver grille accent on the top. It's certainly a step up from the other major Android QWERTY slider around, the T-Mobile G1: For one, it's got a 3.5-mm headphone jack and SDHC expansion (compared to an awkward mini-USB combo and a microSDHC), but it's also significantly thinner and loses the G1's chin.

The QWERTY keyboard feels okay—it's solid and nicely clicky, but the keys are a little flush for me, making it harder than I'd like to differentiate between keys. But the layout is easy to learn and it's overall very easy to use. The Moment also has an array of buttons around the side: A volume rocker on the left; 3.5mm headphone jack under a protective flap on the top; and a microUSB jack, speakerphone toggle and camera button on the right. It's got a 3.2MP camera on the back, which isn't as good as the Hero's and Cliq's 5MP lens.

The front of the device houses the main buttons (Home, Menu, Back, Call and Call End, the latter two of which are tactile) as well as the optical trackpad, which I found a little confusing: It's harder to use than simply touching the screen, and I'm not really sure what exact purpose it's supposed to serve. To its credit, it's very responsive and has nice tactile feedback on the click, but I'd always rather touch the screen.

Unlike the Motorola Cliq or HTC Hero, Samsung hasn't messed with the stock Android interface very much at all, merely sprinkling in some carrier-specific widgets like Nascar, Sprint Navigation and Sprint TV, which actually works quite well.

Compared to the Cliq, which is really the Moment's main competitor, I'd have to say I prefer the Cliq. The Moment's stock Android OS seems so last year, and even though the Cliq is sort of frenetic and sometimes cluttered, at least it has a philosophy. The Moment seems totally serviceable, but Android can be exciting—hell, Sprint even has one of the most exciting Android handsets already in its lineup, the HTC Hero. All in all, the Moment is a solid, if unremarkable, addition to the Android lineup.

Samsung had a good thing going, but then they blew it by sticking the following slogan on the placard beside it: "meaningful innovation, wow experience."

Seriously? Sounds like a move by the same committee who commissioned this beautiful AMOLED screen to begin with, then saddled it Symbian, instead of Android, or even WinMo 6.5.

The Synergy functionality on the Palm Pre really kick-started this craze back in January, when Palm debuted the system of integrating all your web services into their native UI. This week, at the CTIA phone show in Vegas, it seems like everyone wants a piece of this action. Lets look at some of the contenders.

Yahoo Mobile Apps
Yahoo released a torrent of apps on the public this week, which aim to reinvent how you access their services on a mobile basis. Yahoo's Mobile Apps and Portals allow you to:
• Look up your Yahoo contacts
• Check statuses of those contacts and look up your own
• Access yahoo mail and messenger
• Sign into your Oneconnect account for social media updates
• Import RSS feeds and Yahoo content modules for news, sports scores, weather and all that crap

All of this comes together in one place so you don't have to launch 10 different mobile apps to manage this stuff. Good if you're a heavy user of Yahoo services. This service is available via mobile browser, plus there's a standalone app for the iPhone and a Yahoo Go app for the other major platforms (WinMo, Blackberry, Symbian, etc...) which gather all the services into a navigable UI.

3deep
3deep was one of the most impressive mobile apps at CTIA. The idea behind it is that you can manage your calendar, contacts, social media and mail all from a single app, with location-aware integration. It's coming out for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian and Android in the coming weeks, if all goes according to plan. Some of the features include:
• The ability to track location, availablilty and presence—meaning it knows where you're going, what your doing there, how long you'll be there and who you want to meet with most
• "Tell Me When" functionality gives you alerts when selected contacts arrive at a specific location, when they're available to talk/meet, or conversely, will send a shout out when you do the same
• Informatilon on whether it's best to call, SMS, email or IM a selected contact
• Updates from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc....
• Calendar and mail management. Plus auto-integration from your computer and phone cals
• Open API so any developer can make their service compatible with 3deep

While a live demo wasn't available, 3deep reiterated this app would be available as a free download sometime in the next couple weeks. This is some serious Stalker 2.0 right here. Facebook has nothing on 3deep.

HTC TouchFlo 3D
HTC's updated (and upcoming) TouchFlo 3D continues to streamline its design so that it's easier to get pertinent contact info from a single screen. Now using their new tabbed contact screen, you can quickly get up to speed with your friends, including the ability to:
• Check call, email and SMS history.
• Check updates and activity to social media services (Facebook, Skype, etc...)
• Easily send emails, text messages and place calls from the same screen.
• Check upcoming calendar events for a selected contact (if you have their shared cal)

TouchFlo 3D will be available on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 when they launch in the second half of 2009.

The emerging trend is making sure you can communicate and collaborate with your contacts through a variety of mediums and services, all through one control panel. For the most part, it's done with a degree of visual polish. This is good, because if Web 2.0 can't move to the mobile space gracefully, we're all in for some headaches.

When they're open, the two phones are hard to distinguish. On your left, up top, is the EnV3, with the smaller 4:3 screen. On the right, there's the widescreen Voyager 2.

Closed, it's a different matter. Sticking with the formula that's made them hot sellers (without being in any way innovative), LG kept the touchscreen on the Voyager 2 (below, now on the left) and the full number pad on the EnV3 (below, right). Can I say we're excited? No. But will someone buy these, and even brag about them to their friends? Signs point to "yes." [Boy Genius, Electronista]

Everything I said about the software on the Touch Pro 2 holds true with the Touch Diamond 2. It's all a great implementation of the WinMo platform and looks pretty.

But the TD2 hardware doesn't blow me away. For one, it lacks the angled backside of the original Touch Diamond, though some may have considered that excessive design. But I loved the way that design tapered the Touch Diamond. With the TD2, the phone is much more boxy and straight forward, lacking the same chic feel as its predecessor. The metallic silver body feels somewhat sterile, and the only real design flourish is a silver patch on the back. It's also slightly thicker than the original (11.5mm vs 11.3mm)

Obviously the TD2's screen is bigger and better, the guts are a little more powerful and the battery life is improved from the original TD, but I can't help but want more from this follow-up.

Still, if you don't need the keyboard—or the extra heft—and want this new HTC UI, pay attention to the Touch Diamond 2 when it finally launches in the second half of this year. It may be worthwhile.

This T707 is essentially a repackaging of core Sony Ericsson phone tech over the last couple years, but in a flashy new shell. Utilizing the rear camera, you can do things like silence a call or alarm by waving your hand over the camera. And one thing I have to give SE credit for is that they always make sure the UI design is fresh looking. the backend programming may essentially be the same, but they keep updating the visuals so as not to look stale.

Other than that, the T707 has eye-catching colors, sleek design and is otherwise a wholly ordinary dumbphone.

Like the iPhone, Palm gives developers a set of recommended UI design elements in the SDK, to promote a cohesive look in WebOS. While use of these buttons and menus aren't mandatory, these early developers have embraced them. I also happen to think the design DNA of WebOS looks better than any platform on the market, even Mobile OSX.

Google Maps
Google Maps is tightly integrated with the Pre's universal search function, so when you start typing something in search, you can launch straight to Maps, and it will zero-in on the points of interest. You can pan and zoom around the app using your fingers, and pretty much behaves like any other touch-enabled version of Google Maps.

Pandora
Pandora's integration with WebOS will make it the best available mobile version of this music service. When you start Pandora and exit to another app a little Pandora logo remains in the bottom right corner of the screen. When you tap it, a quick launch UI pops up that lets you control the app without exiting whatever else you were doing. Serious, serious multitasking. And in general, the UI seems much more intuitive and usable than most the other versions of Pandora, with plenty of UI navigation options that make it less labyrinth, more music app.

PalmOS Emulator
PalmOS Emulator lets the phone UI look and act like the Garnet OS, and even has virtual, on screen buttons to give you full functionality. If you have old PalmOS apps you can't bear to part with, or just really hate WebOS (but love the Pre?), you can go back in time 10 years. Also worth noting is that Palm says they will roll out a solution for migrating data from old PalmOS phones to new WebOS ones, including support at the Sprint store. But Palm says they'll divulge details closer to release.

TeleNav GPS
The TeleNav demo wasn't fully up and running, since the demo was indoors, but it essentially looks like the version available on the T-Mobile G1. Not much else unique going on there, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, either.

Sprint TV
Sprint TV was probably the least spectacular of the bunch, but even that looked like a pretty nice app. There's a main menu for Viewing options (Live, Premium, On Demand TV), and then secondary menus that let you choose channels or content. Once you hit that, it launches into the TV service, which pulls up video. Video quality wasn't that great, and there was some artifacting/glitching going on, but it was certainly viewable. And there didn't seem to be any sort of on-screen guide or controls for Sprint TV. Not a dealbreaker, but it would sweeten the package.

There were also other apps, like FlightView, which lets you track planes and schedules in real time, among other things, and a NASCAR app, which will let you appreciate America's fastest growing sport (which is heavily sponsored by Sprint!). But if this is what we have to expect for future Pre Apps, I'm pretty excited.

The 7205 Intrigue comes packed with a pretty basic feature set, but includes Nokia's Habitat UI, which is a pretty beautiful design. But the one techie feature of note is the aforementioned MP3 controls and display, which remain invisible until you start using them. The screen can display song info such as artist/album/song title/time, plus it serves as a clock and shows the signal strength as a secondary function. Plus it just looks nice. The touch controls on the outside work pretty well, letting you play/pause/switch tracks in easy fashion. But the 2.5mm headphone jack is bluuuuurrrrrrrrggggg-inducing.

And budget-minded bros, fret not. The 7205 is also available in silver and sans flower petal d-pad, so people don't think you're into dudes...and stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Among other things, the Propel Pro also has GPS, stereo bluetooth, 3-megapixel camera and a 2.5-inch screen with 320x320 resolution. WinMo 6.1 runs fine on the phone. It's not blazing, but it hardly lags. The hardware itself looks beautiful , and I've always been a sucker for squarish, slider phones. However, the keyboard feels totally cramped, and the directional nub is feels cheap, so navigating with this phone isn't the most desirable thing in the world (no touchscreen).

That said, Samsung's Propel Pro will be available on AT&T later this month for $150.

Specifically, Melone told reporters:

The licenses we bought in the 700MHz auction cover the whole US... And we plan to roll out LTE throughout the entire country, including places where we don't offer our CDMA cellphone service today.

Because Verizon's LTE (Long Term Evolution) will operate at the 700MHz frequency—as opposed to the 2.5GHz used by the competing Sprint/Clearwire WiMax network—it could possibly have greater range with fewer towers: The lower the hertz, the farther the signal travels under the same power.

However, as some wise nerd commenter from one of Om's 700MHz stories pointed out a couple years back, the tradeoff with lower frequency is that because it travels so far, fewer users can use the exact same chunks of bandwidth, so there's a capacity issue. (Explanatory metaphor: Say you're on a ship and three people fall overboard. Instead of having three shorter ropes to throw to all of them at once—which may not reach—you get one really long rope to throw to each of them, one at a time.)

These are just some things to think about as the great 4G train starts to pick up steam, and the WiMax vs. LTE battle—characterized for no particular reason as Love Boat vs Fantasy Island—heats up. CNet has more from Melone's news conference, so hit the link. [CNet]

There's not much difference in thickness from the earphones to the headband and there's only one noticeable button (the volume uses a capacitive touch strip. They don't foldup in the most graceful manner, but they don't feel like they'll break either. As for sound quality, Jabra wasn't demoing the tech, but being as small as they are, I wouldn't expect Sennheiser quality here.

The phone makes use of a 3.2-inch, capacitive-touch AMOLED screen that's plenty bright and responsive...at times (more on that later). The sliding action is nice and springy, and the keyboard is both spacious and clicky, mostly because it's a little bigger than most phones in its category.However, the native resolution doesn't really do the screen justice, with visuals looking a little pedestrian. The 3 megapixel camera was also a bit underwhelming, but far from terrible.

On the software side, I was a little less impressed, especially with touch accuracy. The moments where the UI was particularly responsive means that the screen hardware itself is ok, but the that the OS is a little wonky. Being a capacitive screen, you shouldn't have to press very hard for the hardware to register your finger. Some times the Impression required a decent amount of contact to really get into action. Other than that, the UI is standard AT&T fare once you get past the TouchWiz UI, but at this point it's starting to look and feel bit dated.

HTC says this phone will have a VERY consumer friendly pricepoint, and though it may not look quite as slick or customized as the HTC Touch Pro 2, it's powerful enough to let WinMo 6.1 move at lightning speed. The JOG BALLS feels exactly the same as that on the G1 (and the Beautiful Black berry BOLD), and is really the best way to navigate a non touch interface these days, hands down. Also, it's pretty thin for the type of phone it is. I think it has an eating disorder.

The other thing I really liked was the Inner Circle feature. While it wasn't fully operational, the idea that it has it's own dedicated button on the QWERTY keyboard to bring up emails from preferred contacts is pretty effective and neat. It's a good idea people will actually use.

The only downer? It uses that same annoying proprietary G1 port for headphones and audio. Seriously, that thing needs to go.

Anyways, the phone is ramping up for a Spring/Summer 2009 release. If you're looking for something straightforward and affordable, keep your eyes peeled for this.

Last year's Touch Pro was a nice—if a bit utilitarian—WinMo 6.1 offering from HTC, bringing design together with business functionality. The upcoming Touch Pro 2 has upped the ante with some enterprise-centric features that will even make the suit-haters salivate a little.

In terms of hardware, this screen is beautiful, and big and bright, as HTC screens have been over the last year. The screen can also angle up from the keyboard, which is a nice feature if you're outdoors and the sun is getting in the way, or if you just want to be different. As for thickness, considering it has a keyboard, and some decent guts, its actually pretty slim. It's not iPhone or Bold or Snap thin, but it doesn't bother me. But in what seems to be a recurring pattern, the Touch Pro 2 insists on using that proprietary G1 port for all connections. WHHHHHYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?

The first new feature is in the handling on contacts. HTC has followed suit with the Palm Pre and WebOS, finding ways to streamline and integrate info from multiple sources into one menu. Now, when you select a contact, you can switch tabs between contact info, call history, threaded SMS conversations and even internet activity, such as Facebook updates.

The second new feature revolves around available actions from the email interface. When you have a 30-message-long email thread between 4 or 5 people, and it becomes overbearing, HTC has created an interface where you can set up a conference call between all the recipients—straight from the email screen. You can even choose who to add or exclude from the conversation.

When you're in a call and want to go to speakerphone, you can set the the phone down on it's face to initiate that. The Touch Pro 2's accelerometer and ambient sensor detect the position and turn on the speaker phone, which uses two mics and two speakers on the back of the phone. It even has a mute button as well.

Expect the phone to release in the second half of this year, presumably in time for the holidays. And though no specific pricing was released, HTC's Eric Lin said that the phone is targeted towards the same market as the original HTC Touch Pro ($350).

The big thing with the evoke is the screen and the UI. This isn't really a powerhouse multimedia phone, a corporate battle ax, or the king of web phones. Sure, you can view a photo or two, listen to some music and check the news, but that is the extent of it's scope.

The touchscreen is actually pretty nice. I never had to press very hard for it to recognize my finger, and was accurate enough to where I was pretty much able to carry out actions without having to retap or backtrack. The screen also has haptic feedback, so you know when and where your input is being recognized. The screen itself was nice and bright, but I wouldn't put it on the same level as screens found on the top smartphones.

The UI also had some cool stuff going on, including a homepage with a handful of Palm Pre "card"-like internet widgets. These connect to services like MySpace, Picasa, any RSS feed and even Google, to simplify the internet experience on this phone. And it's necessary too, because the browser that comes packaged with the phone isn't all that great. The main menu has the standard, touch-based icon grid that has come to dominate Phone UIs over the last couple years, and swiping up and down lets you scroll through the array of icons that are off the screen.

The Evoke has an oblong, pebble-shaped design with rounded corners that let it sit naturally in your hand. The slide out number-pad is flat, not unlike that found on phones like the Ocean 2 or the Pantech Matrix. It seems like it might be a good phone if you want something that's basic, but not boring.

The Mondi has 4-gigabytes of internal storage, GPS, Push email, a 3-megapixel camera (w/ video support), Bluetooth 2.1 and HDMI out. It supports various video and audio codecs, plus an assortment of instant messaging platforms. Despite having a microphone, voice is not supported on the device, so VoIP or cellular calls are out of the question. However, MMS is available.

I didn't have tons time to play with the Mondi, but the build quality seemed pretty high, and the device was lighter than I expected it to feel. The screen had a bright, crisp look to it, and was reasonably responsive when the TouchWiz UI was present. The Keyboard was laid out nicely, so you could distinguish each key from each other and avoid typos. WinMo 6.1 starts to rear it's head once you get past the first UI layer, but the hardware was powerful enough that it ran pretty well.

The WiMax wasn't turned on (obviously), so I couldn't test that, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs in speed tests.

Samsung Mondi Provides Full Broadband Speeds, HTML Web Experience and Mobile WiMAX/WiFi Access in Compact Touch Screen Device

LAS VEGAS – March 31, 2008 – Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) today announced the upcoming availability of the Samsung Mondi™, the most advanced mobile WiMAX enabled handheld device in the U.S. The touch screen Mondi, which takes its name from the Latin word for "world", is designed for use with the Clear™ mobile WiMAX service from Clearwire.

The Mondi carries many of the powerful features and uses of a laptop computer or netbook, but its compact slider form factor easily fits into the hand or pocket. GPS Navigation provided by Route 66 adds to the Mondi's versatility. Available in a solid black finish, this device extends horizontally to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and optical mouse. The Mondi™ is packed with multimedia features that offer instant access to E-mail, Internet, video content and business applications.

Mondi packs a full -featured web browser, powered by Opera 9.5, which takes full advantage of the device's 4.3-inch touch screen. To keep connected while on-the-go, Mondi offers best-in-class location based services and instant access to social networking websites. It also supports various services including Fring™, Gypsii™, and MS Live Messenger.

The Mondi is completely customizable, thanks to a set of widgets that can be dragged and dropped anywhere on the display screen for easy viewing and use. Mondi is also an excellent device for work or for play. WiFi connectivity offers the business user fast and simple connections to Outlook Email / Calendars, Microsoft Office and many other vertical business applications outside the Clear service area. For the multimedia user, this device offers the ability to download and watch movies, listen to music or play games.

The Samsung Mondi includes the following features:

Windows Mobile 6.1
Microsoft Outlook and Windows Mobile Office
WiMAX Mobile Internet Access
WiFi Access (BTv2.1+EDR)
GPS: Route 66 Navigation with Preloaded Maps
4GB of Internal Memory
Direct Push/Mobile Email (POP3, IMAP, SMTP)
Supports Instant Messaging and MMS
3.0 Megapixel Camera and Camcorder
Bluetooth ® 2.0
Opera 9.5 Web Browser
HDMI TV Out
Supports Multiple Video and Audio Player Formats

"The Samsung Mondi is an important step toward our goal of bringing 4G network speeds and connectivity to people across the U.S.," said Bill Ogle, Chief Marketing Officer for Samsung Mobile. "The Mondi™ is a great match for people who want immediate access to the Web without having to sacrifice download speed and portability."

"The mobile broadband experience that the Mondi offers to Clear customers places the power of the open Internet in the palm of the hand," said Atish Gude, Chief Marketing Officer for Clearwire. "As our network grows across the US, we will continue to work with innovative device manufacturers to expand the mobile WiMAX device ecosystem and leverage the value that a 4G wireless Internet connection delivers."

Samsung is the global leader in delivering mobile WiMAX technologies and offers an end-to-end solution including chipsets, infrastructure, mobile devices and consumer electronics, including devices capable of accessing both mobile WiMAX and other wireless technologies. UQ Communications in Japan and Scartel LLC., in Russia are examples of other Mondi (tm)ing operators preparing for significant commercial deployment of national-wide service using Samsung's mobile WiMAX total solution.

Clearwire currently provides mobile WiMAX service in Portland, Ore. and Baltimore, MD.. The company expects to bring the service to more than 80 markets by 2010. Some of the major markets expected to launch Clear service this year include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle.

That's because the spring CTIA wireless show is going down in Las Vegas, starting April 1. Unlike Mobile World Congress in the fall, CTIA is a U.S.-oriented cellphone shebang, so everything you see will be for America, fuck yeah. Oh, in case you're wondering, CTIA doesn't actually stand for anything anymore—it used to be the Cellular Telephone Industries Association, but now the organization's official name is CTIA - The Wireless Association. Dumb, right?

Some people have already started dropping their wares—AT&T, for one, with that $99 Nokia E71x that we won't stop grinning about—but expect some more throughout the week, including live coverage. [CTIA 2009@Giz]

Of course, if it uses the same operating system as previous Motorola cellphones, the good looks and its 2.8-inch touchscreen won't amount to a hill of beans in the land of iPhone OS, Android, Web OS, and software applications. The Evoque QA4 also has a sliding 12-key pad for some clickity-clack calling action.

The Motorola Evoque QA4 will be shown at CTIA. [Mobilecrunch]