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For those of you out there wanting a simple handset that will meet your daily requirements without all the bling bling of QWERTYs and such, well Motorola gives you the i856. It meets your usual and low demanding requirements of outdoor picture taking, and music playback. The handset is available from Boost, and considering its Boost, this isn’t bad deal at all. Sure it’s not as shiny and sparkly as the i9 but it does have a compact size, 2.2-inch display, sliding 0-9 keypad, 1.3 megapixel camera, dedicated media key, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD support and PTT support. For Boost this is definitely a competitive offer. Any takers?

has certainly been bust as of lately. Maybe the fact that they are now the number one cell phone seller in the United States is making the US market all the more attractive than before. The Korean company has come out with some nice mid-range cell phone, the SGH A777 and SGH A867. The phones were announced recently by AT&T right after the FCC approved of it. Engadget brought us the news.

The SGH A777 is a slider, mid range, 3G cell phone that supports GPRS/EDGE networks as well as dual-band UMTS (850/1900MHz). Those of you who wanted a light yet effective cell phone for AT&T’s high speed networks finally have what they asked for. The phone also has Bluetooth. There’s also a nice 1.3 megapixel camera that takes pictures as well as captures videos, the camera also has autofocus. Built-in memory is a decent 50MB with additional storage support through a microSD slot.

In size, you get a petite 4.0 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches and 96 grams of Samsung to carry around. The display isn’t huge either and the resolution seems ok with 176 x 220 pixels and support for 262K colors. The li-ion battery could do with an improvement, only 3 hours of talk time and 10 days of standby life. The exact release date and pricing information is as of yet unavailable, but the cell phone probably won’t be over $100.

Now for the SGH A867, this is also a nice looking but again mid-range cell phone. Running on EDGE networks well as dual-band UMTS (850/1900MHz) and having Bluetooth is about all that has been unveiled on the cell phone so far. Probably the phone will be similar to the SGH A777 especially in the price range. It will be running on AT&T’s high speed network.

All in all, the two phones aren’t hard on the eyes, quite nice and fit the budget too. They are quite a practical choice since they support 3G and giving you email functionality as well. Let’s see when AT&T finally brings them to the fore front.

HP’s other Smartphone, the iPAQ 150 Voice Messenger was announced with the iPAQ Data Messenger. HP has had a long relationship with Microsoft and its Windows Mobile. It was on e of the first companies that used the Windows Mobile back in 2000. But as far as Smartphones were concerned, HP didn’t enter this terrain until it acquired its biggest competitor Compaq. With the acquisition of Compaq came the pocket PC, iPAQ series. HP kept this name and abandoned its own Jornada. But the real venture into Smartphones came with the two releases this year; one of the iPAQ Data Messenger and the other of the iPAQ Voice Messenger. According to HP’s website, they carrier will be AT&T.  

The iPAQ Voice Messenger is a Windows Mobile Smartphone. This Smartphone is aimed at users who want cell phone features to be more dominant in their Smartphone/PDA. The iPAQ Voice Messenger features a full QWERTY keypad and makes professional life easier with Voice Command. You get your email read to you, you can reply just as easily without having to type. The same ease is available with appointments, tasks and dialing contacts of your list. The 2.4 inch LED backlit screen has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. It also has support for storage expansion with a microSD card slot. There’s also a 1.3 megapixel camera for both photo capture and video recording.

The iPAQ Voice Messenger is available as an unlocked set as well, just in case you don’t want to switch carriers. The cell provides support for Wi-Fi and has VoIP (Voice over IP), a feature that lets you save wireless airtime by allowing you to use your company’s wireless Wi-Fi (LAN) as well as PBX phone systems. The battery gives 6.5 hours of talk time. The warranty period is a year long in most regions and there is 90 days of technical support for the software. In Europe, the iPAQ Voice Messenger is set for release in November and its carriers will be Vodafone. Dates for other markets are not available but they won’t keep you waiting long.

Nokia has announced a new CDMA cell phone, the 2228. This is scheduled for release before the end of 2008 in select CDMA markets, which may include the US as well.

The 2228 is expected to be a reach into the low-end of the market, which is not one of the strongest areas of the Finnish cell phone company. The cell most certainly will bring Nokia’s time honored quality to the much affordable level. The 2228 has been tastefully designed, so you’ll never be sacrificing your fashion sense while taking this cell out to make a call. It has compact design that takes up no more than 12mm and is light as a feather (a 72 gram feather with a battery).  

The cell is competent on essential features, not only is it a CDMA 1x, 800 MHz, it’s also your 1.3 megapixel digital camera with landscape mode. Also, you have the luxury of an in built Nokia Media Player which supports almost all music file formats; MP4, H.263, MIDI, MP3, AAC, AAC+ to be precise. It supports several messaging modes, including short messaging, long messaging, MMS, music messaging, etc. The Nokia Smart Messaging feature won’t let you down.  It also comes with speaker dependent voice recognition, an integrated handsfree speaker and can be used as a modem that allows a consumer to use their phone to connect to a PC for internet access.

Then there’s the cool and cute LED indicator light they’ve put inside a unique lanyard hole in the slim design. The light flashes when there’s an incoming call or messages waiting for you. The LED indicator blinks in a user-defined cycle, or if the cell phone is switched off, to indicate if there are any messages waiting to be read.

The 2228 has 20-25 MB of end user memory, promises 3.5 hours of talk time and 10 days of standby life. It also supports OMA download.