Smartphones

AT&T and HTC just announced the upcoming availability of the HTC Tilt 2 and the HTC PURE with Windows Mobile 6.5. The HTC PURE is a compact touch screen smartphone and the HTC Tilt 2 has a tilting touch screen and a slide out full QWERTY keyboard.

Both phones feature the TouchFLO 3D interface on a large touch screen and provide full access to voice, text, or email in a single contact view, regardless of whether voice, text or email was used. This view can be accessed from the contact card or in the in-call screen during a phone conversation.

HTC Tilt 2 - The HTC Tilt 2 features a 3.6-inch widescreen WVGA display which can be tilted, and a QWERTY keyboard. For speakerphone use, it includes dual speakers and dual microphones with advanced noise cancellation, and HTC's Straight Talk for conference calling. The speakerphone can be activated by simply turning over the device. The HTC Tilt 2 also features a 3.2 megapixel camera. The HTC Tilt 2 will be available in the coming weeks for $299.99 (after $50 mail-in-rebate, two-year agreement on a minimum $69.99 plan required).Read more

It was announced today that the Samsung Behold II (model number SGH-t939) will be available from T-Mobile in time for the holiday season (no exact date was given). The Behold II is a full touch-screen Android phone and features Samsung's TouchWiz user interface.

The Behold II is the first smartphone from T-Mobile to feature a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen, and the TouchWiz user interface lets you customize the phone with widgets located in a slide out tray on the left side of the home screen. The cube menu also gives you fast access to multimedia features, including music, photos, videos, the Web, YouTube and Amazon MP3. Read more

AT&T and Garmin announced this week that the Garmin nüvifone G60 will be available beginning Sunday, October 4.

The nüvifone G60 integrates a GPS navigator with voice, data and mobile web. The device comes preloaded with maps and millions of points of interest for North America and can be mounted in the car with the included dashboard and windshield mount. You can receive turn-by-turn voice-prompted directions and the device has a "Where am I?" feature so you'll know your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, nearest address, intersection, hospital, police station and gas station. Another handy feature is if you can't find your car, nüvifone will automatically mark the position in which it was last removed from the windshield mount.

A full HTML browser can be accessed via AT&T's 3G network, or AT&T's 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. The touch-screen virtual keyboard includes predictive text, and is customizable to QWERTY or A to Z. Read more

T-Mobile just announced that the Motorola CLIQ Android device will be available for pre-sale for existing T-Mobile customers starting Oct. 19 at www.t-mobile.com/CLIQ.

Also, if you purchase the CLIQ during the pre-sale (Oct. 19–Nov. 1), the company will include a complimentary car charger. The CLIQ will be available exclusively to eligible T-Mobile customers for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement.

Visit www.t-mobile.com/CLIQ to register for CLIQ updates and learn more about the phone. There actually is an incentive to this. If you register to receive the updates, you are entered into a grand prize sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip with five friends to one of four destinations. Also, if you register before Oct. 19, you will have a chance to instantly win a new CLIQ.

CLIQ will be available in stores and online beginning Nov. 2 for $199.99 to eligible customers with a two-year agreement.

If you're shopping for a new camera phone, this is one you will want to check out. Sprint just launched Samsung Instinct HD featuring a 5 megapixel camera and video playback that will show in high-definition on an HD monitor or television.

Features of the Samsung Instinct HD include Live Search for Sprint, Visual Voicemail, Sprint TV, localized haptic feedback, Bluetooth 2.0, SMS voice and text messaging with threaded text, Opera Mobile 9.7 Web browser, WiFi connectivity, access to POP3 email, GPS and more. Camera features include a timer to allow for self-portraits; settings with smile mode, sports mode, sunset mode, and night mode, to name a few. Read more

The Samsung Instinct HD is available today (Sept. 27) at Best Buy Mobile. On Oct. 11 it will be in Sprint stores and online at ww.sprint.com. It is priced at $249.99 with a new two-year service agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate (taxes and service charges excluded).

Motorola on Thursday unveiled its first Android phone, the Motorola CLIQ with MOTOBLUR. This "phone with social skills" syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos and more—from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail, work and personal e-mail, and LastFM—and automatically delivers it to widgets on the phone's home screen.

Customize the widgets on the home screen to see live streams of your favorite content, such as:

• Happenings: View all your social site updates in one spot with the live Happenings application. Every friend feed, status update, wall post, bulletin and photo upload is automatically delivered
• Messages: Quickly scroll through the Messages application for a snapshot of current work or personal e-mails, social site messages, and texts, with the ability to respond to any message however you want no matter how it was sent: text, email, IM and more.
• Social Status: Blast your status right from the home screen and even save time by updating your status to one or all your social networks at once.
• News Feeds: Keep track of your favorite news feeds, sports scores or even celebrity gossip without leaving the home screen.
• Calendar: Integrate your work calendar with Google Calendar into one Calendar widget

Read more

Palm just announced the Pixi, a thinner and less expensive version of the Palm Pre. Running on the Palm webOS, the Pixi features a visible full keyboard and rubberized back cover. Unlike the Pre, the Pixi does not have Wi-Fi.

Weighing in at just 3.51 ounces, the Pixi features a 2.63-inch touch screen, Built-in GPS, 2 megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth connectivity, 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, 8GB memory and MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed.

Palm will also be offering the Palm Pixi Artist Series with limited-edition back covers in cool designs. See the first designs in the Artist Series at www.palm.com/artistseries.

The Pixi will be available as a Sprint exclusive in time for the holidays. No pricing has been announced. However, Palm did announce new pricing on the Palm Pre. You can now get the Pre from Sprint for as low as $149.99 with contract.

Best Buy just announced that they will be selling the Sprint HTC Hero smart phone when it launches on October 11th. It will be available in all Best Buy stores as well as the stand alone Best Buy Mobile stores. They are the exclusive national retailer.

Also, to save customers the hassle of mailing in rebate forms, those who purchase the smart phone at Best Buy Mobile will receive instant savings of $150 at the point of purchase. The phone will retail for $179.99, after $150 instant savings, with two-year Sprint service activation.

The HTC Hero runs on Google's Android operating platform and is the first phone to feature HTC Sense - a widget-based interface that puts at-a-glance info on the home screen. Contacts' information is easily accessible with all text exchanges, email conversations, Facebook status updates, Flickr photo albums and phone logs, organized by contacts' names. The Hero also has an integrated Flash player for web browsing.

If you purchase the smart phone at a Best Buy Mobile store, be sure to take advantage of Walk Out Working™, a free in-store smart phone setup. A Best Buy representative will sync email accounts, set up Bluetooth headsets, transfer contacts and activate other services, so you can leave the store with a fully functional smart phone.

T-Mobile announced today that the myTouch 3G with Google is now available at retail stores and online at www.t-mobilemytouch.com for $199.99 with a two year agreement.

The new myTouch lets you personalize the device with widgets, icons and wallpapers, which can be added directly on the home screen. The Android Market has tons of applications to choose from. In fact, T-Mobile launched a new application in the Market called AppPack, which highlights a sampling of applications. Read more