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LG, I think, has established itself as one of those manufacturers that will lead you on to think they will never make a great looking handset, and just when you have your guard down, they’ll make a grand entrance with a cell phone to die for. In the rat race competition to bring out the best 8 megapixel camera bearing handset, LG has come out with a very hot number. The LG Viewty II is a touch screen handset that flaunts an 8 megapixel camera. It also has 3-inch WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) touchscreen display, 8 megapixel Schneider-Kreuznach camera, Xenon flash, Quad-band GSM, HSPA, Wi-Fi, S-Class UI, DivX playback, aGPS. Interested yet? Expecting 30 fps is a safe bet. Now if only LG can get the price right and this is a done deal.

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Steven Elop, the President of Microsoft’s Business Division, has recently made public Microsoft’s plans for the future. In a video from Microsoft Office Labs titles ‘2019’ MS shows a world where touch screen functionality and ubiquitous wireless communication is the norm.  The video takes you into a world of tomorrow that would make most science fiction fans drool. But if MS is planning all its efforts in this direction, can’t wait to see that future take shape. Here’s the video

Sony’s much rumored touch screen Walkman, the one they were calling the iPod Killer, is out in the open. The Sony Walkman NWZ-X1000 will feature a colorful and crisp 3-inch OLED display, Wi-Fi and built-in headphone-independent noise cancellation for those who prefer not to shell out a fortune for a pair of noise-canceling headsets.

The marble painted exterior is another aesthetic winner. The NWZ-X1000 will be out in 16GB and 32GB memory sizes. Further details on the walkman will be coming our way soon. But yeah, the price may warrant you put aside a little bit from today onwards. But whether the whole ‘iPod Killer’ is going to come true is not likely. The phone is awesome of itself, but whether it can really kill the iPod or not will be decided after a couple of days in our good service.

Here’s another company that wants a piece of the Windows Mobile pie, Mio. The company that is better known for manufacturing consumer GPS products is now developing its own 3.5G Windows Mobile Touch screen (yes touch screen) handset. Considering how PDA’s are becoming the norm rather than the exception, there’ll be more new entrants over the next year.

It seems that the company plans to compete with Garmin Nuvifone since it will be making the launch of its set in the first quarter of 2009. Details on the presumably GPS-centric phone include a 3.5G chipset from Qualcomm, the proprietary “Spirit” touch user interface and a 3.2MP auto-focus camera.

This is not Mio’s first attempt at a GPS PDA phone as it already has a few of Windows Mobile handsets like the recent A502 and 702. This latest phone however, may push Mio’s handset line into brighter light because of the sizzling 3.5G connectivity instead of Mio’s previous EDGE-only offerings. Mio is also expected to launch a GPS-enabled MID (Mobile Internet device) by the end of Q1 2009. If things go as planned, no hitches no glitches, and Mio doesn’t get beaten up badly a la Nuvifone, then it will definitely be making some impressive offerings come early 2009 that may boost its market share while posing a serious problem for Garmin.

An article in the Digitimes has brought some nice bits of news for Motorola fans; the Taiwan based company Compal has received orders for two Windows Mobile smartphones. The phones are currently under the codenames Alexander and Attila. Up till a few months ago, the phones existence had only been rumors and only this week did spy shots appear on different websites confirming that the two phones were fact not fiction. Earlier speculation pitted the phones for release this quarter, but the Digitimes reports that the PDA phones will (probably) be out in Q1 2009.

The Attila is a touch-screen only phone. It has some nice specifications such as Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850MHz/1900MHz/2100MHz), 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 1.8Mbps HSUPA, 1130mAh battery, 2.8″ QVGA 240 x 320 screen, Wi-Fi b/g, Qualcomm 7201A chipset and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.

As far as the Alexander goes, all that is known so far is that it’s a QWERTY keyboard bearing smartphone. The image is from BGR. The phone looks like it will be taking up a lot of hand space. And why exactly is Motorola focusing on new Windows Mobile phones after promising all of us Android technology on our PDAs? I’m sure they have a very good reason, and if I had the power of telepathy, I’d find out and share it with you.

AT&T has brought out another awesome looking device for the holiday shoppers. This is the LG Incite, a sleek touch screen smartphone that is currently exclusive to AT&T. The phone launched on AT&T’s website this morning.

The LG Incite is the first smartphone from the company to the North American region. The phone doesn’t feature any proprietary operating system, rather makes good use of the Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 platform. The phone also features a nice 3” WQVGA touch screen. There’s also 256 MB ROM/128 MB RAM and a 3MP camera, making it solid, functional mid-range Windows Mobile phone.

The Incite doesn’t have a physical touch screen like the Fuze, it is wholly solely dependent on the on-screen keyboard for data input. The connectivity options are pretty good too, featuring a quad-band GSM phone with tri-band 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR and OTA firmware updates.

Being launched on AT&T, the Incite supports a number of multimedia options such as AT&T Mobile Music, XM Radio and Pandora Music streaming. Needless to say that this renders the phone priceless. And speaking of prices, the Incite is a nice $199 after a $100 mail in rebate and a two year contract. Without a contract, you get a nice $500 bill.

We live in the age of the touch screens, from our PCs to our handsets, the touch screens are taking over. Not necessarily an evil, no it’s more about keeping your hands and the touch screen clean. So the latest in touch screen to land is the Samsung Eternity that has just made a debut on AT&T. Let me be the very first to say that Samsung has certainly be on a roll lately. I think the taking number one spot in the US cell phone market has been a good boost of self-esteem.

Now getting to what the Eternity will bring us, well for starters, the touch screen on this phone is HUGE. I’m talking about 3.4 inches with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution and support for 262K colors. Doesn’t get any sweeter than this. The phone has a full QWERTY keyboard and also supports AT&T Mobile TV. And of course, there is the Samsung signature TouchWiz user interface that lets you personalize the phone to your heart’s content. The TouchWiz provides widgets for your favorite applications that you can keep on the screen in a tray. These widgets also extend to application that carriers may provide; meaning you will have a widget right on your screen that will take you directly to AT&T Mobile TV. A quick and simple “drag and drop” feature lets users instantly access their favorite functions, such as the clock, music player, instant messaging, photos, etc.

The chrome and black exterior are sleek and undeniably cool. There are only three physical keys on the lower portion of the phone and these make navigation a very simple task. Then there’s the built-in accelerometer that will detect motion and orientation to modify the screen display automatically to suit motion sensing games and facilitate photo scrolling.

The Eternity includes a 3.0-megapixel camera with video capture, Video Share calling, advanced messaging capabilities, including Mobile Email and instant messaging (Yahoo!, Windows Live, AOL), Bluetooth technology and a microSD memory card slot supporting up to 8GB.

The phone is available currently in stores as well as online for $149.99. This deal includes a two-year contract and a $50 mail in rebate.

A while ago we were dazzled by the announcement of the world’s first touch screen BlackBerry, the BlackBerry Storm. Verizon Wireless was the carrier to bring it in the hands of users. But after the initial promotional video, there hasn’t been any further information about when the BlackBerry Storm will hit the market, what prices, what plans, etc, etc. And we were left wondering what Verizon and RIM had in mind. Well now, just recently, Verizon has announced Global Plans for the BlackBerry Storm.

Announcements are yet again pouring in from the towers of Verizon regarding their BlackBerry Storm release. The Global Plans will involve 200 destinations for voice service and 150 destinations for data service.

The 3G phone is thus aimed at the global traveller. According to Verizon, “The BlackBerry Storm allows for roaming in South America and Japan and also provides 3G data speeds on select international networks, giving customers high-speed connectivity when they’re abroad.”

Another service Verizon is offering, a rare one from the company, is a pre-installed SIM card which gives buyers of the Storm the luxury of activating global service at the time of purchase. They simply call Verizon Wireless before leaving the United States. Also, for frequent global travelers, Verizon has come up with quite an economical international roaming plan, $4.99 per month on incoming or outgoing calls for 130 countries.

In addition, there’s also GlobalEmail on the Storm that offers access to your corporate attachments. It also offers Web Browsing, Picture Messaging and Visual Voice Mail in the US as well as overseas for $69.99 per month on stand-alone data plans and $64.99 per month when paired with a voice service plan. This may seem a lot, it’s practically double what most data plans charge in the US, but when you consider the pace with which roaming charges add up in Europe, the extra money spent actually saves the frequent traveller a nice bit of cash. You can also watch the promotional video for the Storm.

BlackBerry Storm Verizon Wireless

T-Mobile has waoed Smartphone users with the new Google Phone aka G1. The touch screen beauty from HTC has brought a fresh user experience and right up there competing with the iPhone. Of course there are a few issues, but HTC, T-Mobile and Google are already at work fixing the bugs and making the G1 better than ever. The dedicated website, Android Roadmap, keeps users and all those interested up to date on what to expect from the G1.

One of the issues that G1 users have had, and which has been quoted as something the Google Phone lacked in competing with the iPhone, was a virtual keyboard. While users of the iPhone complained of not having a real keyboard, the G1 users find that sliding out the QWERTY everytime is cumbersome.

Well good news for all G1 users who so far have to slide out the QWERTY keyboard to make type reply as short as ‘y?’ T-Mobile will bring out the virtual keyboard on its Google Phone in the first quarter of 2009. At least this is what they say thus far on the Android Roadmap.

The virtual keyboard on G1 won’t be multi-touch like the iPhone and then there are speed concerns. Users have found that there is a little delay when using dialer.  But still, the ability to perform all those email and text messaging tasks on the soft screen rather than taking out the keyboard.

Till next year then, while everyone gets used to the QWERTY keyboard.

The hottest news about what AT&T will be releasing in November this year is the ever gorgeous Samsung Omnia also known as the i900.

Now if you’ve been reading your cell phone news right, you’ll know that every cell phone enthusiast has been holding his or her breath in anticipation of the Omnia. This cell phone is a beauty, not to mention the classiest combo of the latest features.

Omnia, which means ‘everything’ in Latin and ‘wish’ in Arabic really does have everything you could wish for. It has a fine 3.2 inch touch screen along with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, which is unique to the Korean company. This state of the art Smartphone has a 5 megapixel camera that comes equipped with autofocus, image stabilizer, face recognition and even Smile Shot. There’s also a MP3 player, Bluetooth, and FM radio. The Omnia runs on Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 Operating system. According to Samsung the IS is their reason for using a WQVGA resolution screen. The large than average touch screen is an attempt to make up for this deficiency.

The Omnia supports GPS as well as visual voicemail. And then the usual features of a PDA are all to look forward to, I mean there’s HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth stereo. The cell comes in two different memory capacities, 8 GB or 16GB. You can also get an upgrade to the memory up to 32GB with microSDHC support. And since AT&T is releasing it, comes with support for AT&T’s array of services like AT&T Music, AT&T Video, and even AT&T Mobile TV. The finishing touch is the 12.5mm platinum body that just commands attention.

The Omnia was launched in Asia in June and Europe in July. It’s scheduled to hit the US in November. The price tag on the 16GB Omnia is set somewhere around $720 while the 8GB version will come out a little later. Of course prices could vary with a contract. Let’s see what AT&T does with this beauty.