Official: Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus for AT&T 'in the coming months'

Yes folks, it's finally really happened. Today Palm announced that its dynamic duo -- the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus -- will be making their way to AT&T's network "in the coming months." We won't bore you with too many details on the devices, since you can read our review of the non-Plus Sprint variations here andhere, and the Verizon versions right here. What we will tell you is that at an undisclosed time, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus can be yours for just $149.99 and a deep-discount $49.99 (with a $100 mail-in rebate and two-year contract), respectively. The Pre Plus will be similarly equipped to its Verizon counterpart (16GB of storage, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1), and the Pixi should look awfully familiar as well (8GB storage, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1), though AT&T will be offering a variation with a blue back plate (in addition to the standard black and other swappable covers). Both UMTS / HSDPA devices will support AT&T's new Address Book service as a Synergy sync option, and will have free auto-connect access to the carrier's WiFi +20,000 hotspots. We don't know when we'll get our hands on these guys, but Palm will be showing off the AT&T-ified versions of the handsets at the upcoming CTIA... which we will of course be attending. It should be interesting to see if hopping on AT&T's network will move the needlefor Palm, let's just hope those "coming months" are, you know... pretty soon. Full PR and one more pic after the break.

Dell Aero is AT&T's second Android phone

Looks like Dell's finally entering the modern US smartphone market with a renamed Mini 3 called the Aero for AT&T. There's some serious Android UI skinning going on here -- it looks like a riff on what we've seen on the Streak / Mini 5 -- but that's all we know specs-wise at the moment. To be honest, we're somewhat concerned that this custom UI skin will be built on top of Android 1.5 or 1.6 instead of 2.1, and that AT&T will mandate a Backflip-style app lockdown -- until we get some hard details all we have is this tiny pic and our usual hope for the future.

Samsung's Super AMOLED-packin' Wave S8500 priced in Germany: €429

Samsung's world-beater -- you know, that Wave S8500 that debuted back at Mobile World Congress -- was revealed without one of the most vital statistics, but that's being remedied today courtesy of a product listing over at Amazon's German portal. The Bada-equipped device, complete with a Super AMOLED display that's supposedly viewable in broad daylight, has found a €429 MSRP across the pond, which equates to around $579 using today's highly volatile exchange rates. Granted, that's a contract-free (read: unsubsidized) price, but we're still going to hold out for a late-night session with the new OS before pinging our importer. Plus, those funky European AC adapters do nothing at all for us. Sorry.

Motorola makes i1 official, melds Android and push-to-talk this summer on Sprint

Right on cue, just after the aptly-timed teaser poster, Motorola signs on just the right dotted lines to make its i1 push-to-talk Android handset official. Let's run through the specs quickly, shall we? A 3.1-inch HVGA (320 x 480) touchscren, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 4x zoom, WiFi, and microSD expansion -- no mention of the processor, so we'll have to find out on our own later. The OS version is 1.5 and, while there's oddly not a single mention in either the press release of fact sheet, given the official images and unofficial leaks, it's definitely got Motoblur. The browser of choice is Opera Mini 5 with support for Flash 8, and if you're worried about Mother Nature's wrath, the i1 meets Military 810F standards for handling averse weather conditions. iDEN lovers can pick up the call sometime this summer on Sprint, with price yet to be named.

Update: Motorola's just sent word that the i1 does not have Motoblur, despite the presence of the traditional green call / blue contacts buttons. That begs the question, then, of what exactly defines Motoblur here (is just the Happenings widget missing?), and what Android skin is on the i1 -- the press images here are definitely not showing vanilla 1.5. We're still awaiting a response to that, stay tuned.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review

Of the world's largest phone manufacturers, perhaps none has taken a more twisted road to smartphone ubiquity than Sony Ericsson. It began its journey back in the pre-joint venture Ericsson days by throwing its weight behind Symbian, a smartphone platform that would ultimately become the world's most popular -- but it made a fatal error in supporting the doomed UIQ flavor that never saw even a fraction of the support its S60 cousin did. UIQ's untimely (but predicted) collapse last year left the company nearly rudderless and ill-equipped to deal with competitors like Nokia, HTC, and Apple, all of whom had long since embraced other platforms -- all with fighting chances of market dominance.

Left without a platform to champion, Sony Ericsson would ultimately continue supporting Symbian through its involvement with the Symbian Foundation and phones like the Satio and Vivaz... and it would ramp up support for Windows Mobile with the Xperia X1 and X2... and it would bring Android into the fold with the X10, all within a few months of each other. All told, Sony Ericsson enters 2010 actively supporting three unrelated smartphone platforms, and comments by CEO Bert Norberg at MWC in February lead us to believe that they'd be happy to take on a fourth (or more) if the opportunity presented itself. It's an odd strategy to be sure, particularly for a company that's struggling mightily and shrinking its workforce more than any other top-five manufacturer. How it intends to effectively compete on three different fronts without spreading itself hopelessly thin, well... that remains a huge question mark.

That said, the Xperia X10 is perhaps the most promising of Sony Ericsson's confusing crop of modern smartphones, combining attractive hardware with killer specs, Android, and an intriguing custom skin. Does it hold its own against modern competitors like HTC's Nexus One and Desire? And more importantly, can it keep Sony Ericsson from going over the brink? Read on to find out.

Official: Apple now offering iPhones contract free (updated: not unlocked)

We heard from 9 to 5 Mac that Apple was due to begin selling a contract-free variant of the iPhone in the near future "at list price." And guess what happened when we inquired to an Apple store? That's right folks -- you can now pick one up for $499 (3G), $599, or $699 (3GS). We've confirmed this info at no less than five stores, so you should be hearing the same message at your local Appletorium. Given the current unfriendly climate between Apple and Google, this could be seen as nasty jab, though the devices are still carrier-locked to AT&T, so you're not being given much freedom... and it's certainly not much of a statement. In many parts of Europe (France and Poland, for example) you can pick up the carrier-unattached device (and we mean totally unlocked), but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

Update: We're getting mixed reports on the unlock status of these phones. One store says yes to the unlock, while others are saying they're still AT&T-locked devices being sold off contract. We're digging for more info on this now, so stay tuned.

Update 2: It's looking like those initial reports of unlocked devices are inaccurate. It sounds like these devices are still locked to AT&T -- so you're just looking at an off contract pricing scheme. Which is also totally lame.

Samsung to announce Galaxy S smartphone, content initiatives this week

We've just received a veritable cornucopia of information around Samsung's supposed announcements out at CTIA this week -- and seeing how this is the biggest wireless show the US has to offer, you might imagine that the reveals are fairly US-focused while still hanging onto some global relevance. Here's what we know:

• The company's so-called "Smart Life" philosophy for smartphone design and differentiation -- something we've heard referred to as S Life in the past, including here at CTIA -- will be formally introduced. It won't so much be a product or a smartphone platform (as far as we can tell) so much as an overarching strategy.
• A 1GHz applications processor will be announced as the "new standard" in Sammy's premium smartphone segment for 2010; in all likelihood, this is the Cortex A8-based core announced in the middle of last year.
• A huge content push will be announced (US market mercifully included) with full-length movies and shows that are "optimized" to take advantage of the company's new Super AMOLED displays. You'll also see some book and magazine deals get struck for straight-to-mobile delivery, but it sounds like we won't get the straight dope on how it'll all work (and who's involved, exactly) this week.
• Kicking off S Life from the hardware side will be the Galaxy S, Samsung's big phone announcement for the week. As far as we can tell, it'll be an Android device taking advantage of Super AMOLED and the company's homegrown 1GHz core -- and it'll be available in the US this year.

That's all we've got so far, but Sammy's mobile prez J.K. Shin has a keynote tomorrow morning along with an event immediately afterward, so we expect to get this fleshed out in the next day or so. Stay tuned!

LG Remarq combines QWERTY, not being mean to the environment in one package for Sprint

Looking for a little more Lucky Goldstar to go with your eco-friendly leanings on Sprint than theSamsung Reclaim can offer? No problem -- look no further than the newly-announced LG Remarq, featuring a form factor decidedly similar to Sammy's entry without straying from the recycled casing and packaging that made the older device so easy for Mother Nature to get behind. It's got a 1.3 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, IM capability, and microSD expansion up to 16GB to go along with a music player -- not mind-numbing specs by any stretch, but you'll only be paying a big, fat zero for it when it launches on May 9. Oh, and you'll be doing your little part to help the environment, too, which is really the only feature you should need to see on the spec sheet anyway -- right?

Motorola i1 first hands-on!

We're shmoozing with Motorola's team and Mike Rowe -- yes, the Dirty Jobs guy, who's been fittingly selected as the rugged i1's spokesperson -- and we're starting to get our first fleeting moments with Motorola's first Android-powered iDEN handset in the flesh. Believe it or not, it might be the best-feeling Android phone from Motorola to date, besting the CLIQ XT and Droid with a tasteful mix of black chrome and rubber around the edges; if it weren't for the lack of bona fide 3G, we could realistically see putting this in our pockets over, say, a myTouch 3G, Hero, or Behold II. We've been able to confirm that they've basically taken the UI look and feel introduced by Blur and subtracted... well, the things that actually make it Blur, namely the integration with Blur servers that brings social service aggregation into the fold. Will it appeal to the iDEN demographic? Hard to say, but Mr. Rowe certainly seems amped on it. Check out the gallery below!

RIM BlackBerry 'T' (Talladega?) slider launching next month?

Hang with us for a sec as we conjure up a speculative device from a sordid collection of rumors. By now we've all seen the leaked BlackBerry slider right? How about the "Mr. T" phone, heard of that? Maybe you've heard of it by its other codename of Talladega? The connection here is that all of these devices are thought to be one and the same although that's definitely not confirmed by any stretch.

Things got a bit more interesting today after a loose-lipped CEO of a RIM parts supplier (Woojeon & Handan) mentioned a brand new BlackBerry "T" phone launching next month during an interview posted on joins.com (a popular Korean news site). According to our translation or the Korean jibba jabba:

"The Canadian company RIM famous for BlackBerry smartphones is releasing a new model next month. Known as the "T," The new model is an ambitious product aimed at competing against iPhone's storm of success. Rim will present it ("T") as its flagship model to compete in global markets such as the U.S. and Europe."

Funny, we thought that the original Storm was RIM's answer to the iPhone. Anywho, Reuters picked up on the Woojeon & Handan interview today but shied away from mentioning the name or the "next month" timing, saying only that W&H would supply parts for a new RIM product to be released later this year. With any luck, we'll get a full reveal of the mythical BB slider next week with the kickoff of the big CTIA show.

Windows Phone 7 Series: the complete guide

After Windows Phone 7 Series' grand unveiling at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress last month, Microsoft has circled back over the last several days during GDC and its own MIX10conference to fill in many of the holes in this story -- in particular, details around the app development ecosystem and how third parties can take full advantage of it have been focal points. Of course, it makes sense: a modern smartphone is only as good as its software catalog, and Redmond's clearly keen to show that it knows how very true that is. XNA -- the technology that underpins Zune games and a host of Xbox content -- figures prominently into the equation, but Silverlight is a huge, unavoidable component as well, making development for WP7S devices a starkly different experience for studios and independent code monkeys than in versions prior. We're going to be periodically updating this post as we get new info on the platform, but for now, follow the break for everything you need to know -- so far -- about Microsoft's latest and greatest mobile platform.

i-Got-Control IRB1 dongle gives your iPhone / iPod touch universal remote functionality

No need to spot clean your spectacles, and no need to brush the cobwebs out of your dome -- you really are seeing yet another IR dongle for Apple's dear iLineup. Hot on the heels of New Potato's FLPR, ThinkFlood's RedEye mini and Power A's solution comes this: an all-too-similar way to convert your iPod touch, iPhone or forthcoming iPad into a universal remote. Functionality wise, there's really nothing here that the other guys don't provide, though the beefed-up database of over 40,000 IR codes should make setting up your system a breeze. Users simply plug this into their dock connector, download the free application from the App Store and then dial up whatever components they have; once loaded, the IR beamer should do the rest, nixing the need to keep those 40 remotes around. It's expected to start shipping any day now for $69.95.

T-Mobile USA eyeing iPhone launch this year or next?

We don't like to stir up the nearly constant barrage of "so-and-so is getting the iPhone" rumors unless we've got a great reason to do so -- and we'd argue that a Financial Times report involving statements from Deutsche Telekom's CEO qualifies. The British rag was chatting up DT's boss over the prospects of its American unit -- T-Mobile USA -- and stressed the company's long-term commitment to turning around T-Mobile's fortunes in the face of recent spinoff rumors, saying that it's all about rapidly building out a speedy 3G network as part of an effort this year "to lay the foundation for future growth."

Here's where it gets juicy: referring to the iPhone, the report goes on to say that "T-Mobile USA is hoping to start selling the popular smartphone later this year or next year" while focusing on Android in the meantime, as if Android is merely a stopgap measure to make it through to the singular device that can save America's number four carrier from going down the tubes. It's not clear whether FT got the chief exec making a statement to that effect on the record or it's merely gleaning this knowledge from other rumors, but the only way this would be able to happen is if the next iPhone were to come in an AWS-compatible version -- and that seems unlikely considering that AWS coverage represents a trivially small fraction of 3G subscribers around the world. Of course, wireless CEOs of all walks of life regularly make statements saying they'd be more than happy to carry the iPhoneif the opportunity presented itself, so this could be little more than off-the-cuff blather anyway

Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger phone for France is hardly Pink

Microsoft's a pretty big company, and while we've been focused on itsWindows Phone 7 Series and Pink mobile projects over here in the Land of the Free, its Live Messenger arm has apparently teamed up with French mobile carrier SFR for a branded phone. The Messenger Edition 251 handset looks to be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 (or something older), with no word on who the hardware partner is, and is taking on the youth market just like Pink will presumably be doing Stateside sometime this year. Of course, Messenger is much more popular in Europe than it is in the States, so it makes sense to brand a phone around it, but underneath that candy QWERTY shell we're sure those hapless Europeans can find plenty of legacy Windows Mobile to be desperately disappointed in.

AT&T posts four new featurephones from Samsung and Pantech

AT&T loves to trumpet the importance of the so-called "quick messaging" segment to its bottom line -- the QWERTY-equipped featurephones that keep the teens and tweens texting 24 / 7 -- so it's no surprise that of the latest batch of devices they've added into the mix from Samsung and Pantech (which we missed while caught up in the week's MIX10 activities), three of the four have full keyboards. The Strive from Samsung gets real in stores on March 21 with a 2 megapixel cam and vertical slide for just $20 on contract with rebate; the Sunburst comes on the same date for $40 with the same cam but a rather attractive full-touch design. On the Pantech side, you can choose from the portrait QWERTY Link (pictured left) or the Pursuit portrait slider, though neither has been blessed with a price or release date just yet. Perhaps more interesting than the phones themselves is the fact that the devices are the first to get hooked up with a host of new services from AT&T, including a cloud-synced address book, a media sharing service called Mobile Share that allows you to transfer videos and pictures between devices for a monthly or per-transfer fee, and so-called "Next Generation Messaging" that adds group texting capability, a threaded view, and a unified inbox -- smartphone-caliber features across the lower end of AT&T's range.