Although O2 says that its new PDA looks stylish, the Zest has a rather modest design, with nothing that can pass as really attractive.

The Xda Zest is built by Asus and comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 on board, thus offering users the well-known advantages of Microsoft Mobile Outlook and Microsoft Mobile Office.

The official specs and features of O2 Xda Zest include:

• A 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display (with 320 x 240 pixels, apparently)
• HSDPA connectivity
• Built in GPS and a 2-week CoPilot Sat Nav trial
• Wi-Fi
• MP3 player
• FM radio
• A 3 MP camera
• Expandable memory  

Starting November 17, the new O2 Xda Zest will be available for purchase in O2’s stores, as well as via the carrier’s online shop. On Pay&Go, the Xda Zest costs £249.99 (about $393), while with certain contract agreements the device will even be offered for free.  

Via O2

• LG Incite announced for Korea too
• Samsung Can’t Decide on Name for F480
• Samsung officially announces i900 Omnia
• Philips Xenium X830 comes with a 5MP camera
• 8 new Samsung phones leaked – S5050, C5212, S3310 and E2210 included

Sprint is definitely working hard to regain its reputation and bring some of the lost customers back into its fold. So far this summer they are doing very well, first with the release of the Samsung Instinct June 20 and now with the Treo 800w.

Ever the source of leaks, HowardForums was the first to reveal the inventory sheet shown below. It suggests that July 13 is the big day, not the 22nd as originally anticipated. Now this is going to be for non-enterprise customers; enterprise palm addicts will be able to purchase the 800w on July 9.

Not only is Sprint making a worthy comeback and becoming a strong contender in the wireless market, Palm has also been making a rather hefty comeback of its own through the popularity of the Centro; can they keep the momentum rolling when the 800w comes out?

via IntoMobile

• Sprint Palm Treo Pro finally coming on March 15 for $199
• Sprint employees starting Palm Pre training – release imminent?
• Palm Treo Pro and pink Samsung Instinct from Sprint in January 2009
• CDMA Palm Treo Pro now available from Sprint
• Palm Treo Pro to be outed by Alltel on March 5

There won’t be anything different about this Centro compared to the ones the other guys offer, just that it will only be available in cobalt blue and running on EVDO (AT&T’s Centro does not run on their 3G network). This Palm is the first to offer the unlimited email and internet plan for smartphones, so expect your bill to show $29.99 each month for that package.

More than one million units have been sold, and we’re pretty confident to say that on Verizon’s network that number will continue to increase significantly. Palm claims that the Centro is off to the best start of any device in Palm’s history; with the success of the Treo lineup, that would seem a pretty bold statement.

via Engadget

• New Palm smartphones (P120, C40) coming soon to Sprint?
• 100,000 Motorola Droids sold by Verizon in the first week-end?
• Gartner: cell phone sales declined 6% in Q2 2009, smartphone sales grew 27%
• Bell Canada to release the Palm Centro on February 2
• BlackBerry Tour 9630 flying off the shelves

This particular PDA will be shipped as early as June 30, the HP press release claims. Just as many of the PDAs being released lately, this gem offers quad-band GSM/EDGE world support as well as tri-band 7.2 Mbps UMTS/HSDPA.

It will sport Windows Mobile 6.1 with touchscreen display, WiFi b/g and Bluetooth connectivity, GPS navigation, and come equipped with a 3 MP camera. It also takes advantage of Microsoft Internet Sharing software which enables faster tethering to the internet on your laptop. The press release also mentions the use of a 5-way navigation scroll wheel.

The top picture shows the official HP press photo when it was originally announced last fall. The bottom picture shows the iPAQ900 as it was approved by the FCC. Are they supposed to be the same model, and the look simply evolved since last fall? Discuss.

The pricing will differ for each country and region, so stay tuned for more information on that when available.

via HP via PhoneScoop

• HP iPAQ 210/ 214 Enterprise Handheld
• Full new HP-iPaq line-up revealed: Hp-iPaq 914, 614, 314, 214, 114
• TomTom and Garmin to launch their own GPS PDA phones this year?
• 5 new HP iPAQ’s officially announced
• HP iPAQ Data Messenger and iPAQ Voice Messenger unveiled

To retrieve the data, 3500 smartphone users were sampled in the US as well as 3500 in the UK. Each subject in the study had either a Windows, Symbian, or Palm device with which to browse the internet. This actually intrigues me, as this excludes mobile browsing done by iPhone users. (I believe iPhone users spend even more time browsing the internet because of ease of use and popularity of web apps. Expect it to increase even more with widespread release of the 3G iPhone.)

Why is there such a difference? Paul Goode, senior analyst for M:Metrics, explains that a possible reason for the discrepancy is the popularity of flat-rate data plans in the States. As it turns out, almost 11% of mobile users have an unlimited plan in the US compared to only 2.3% in Britain. He also mentions that US users have smartphones with QWERTY devices — “nine of the top ten smartphones are QWERTY”, he says — whereas in Britain the majority of smartphones do NOT have QWERTY keyboards.

Finally, the study also finds that social networking and internet commerce take up most of the users’ time while browsing. Craigslist gets the most time by American users and Facebook wins the award for most time spent by Brits.

This study matters because it shows the rapidly increasing popularity of mobile internet in the US. More and more people are turning to the internet browser on their phones not only to make their lives more convenient, but to keep up with old friends and burn free time. And it makes sense as phones access the internet faster each year and new browsers with increased capabilities can be downloaded onto our smartphones. I predict that this trend will continue to increase at an even faster pace in the coming years!

M:Metrics Press Release

• Benefits of Mobile Phone Coupons Plentiful
• iPhone used for voice communications less than half of the time in US
• Traffic to social networks makes up to 40% of mobile internet usage
• Study Shows Touchscreen Adoption Growing at Exponential Rate in USA
• RIM reports strong growth, 3.9 million new BlackBerry subscribers

The Airis T482 will be equipped with CoPilot Live 7, software developed by ALK Technologies, and will be available for sale primarily on the Internet.

This smartphone is incredibly lightweight and versatile, with a larger sized screen of 3.2 inches and a 2 megapixel digital camera. Also offered is quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), GPRS and EDGE, two processors and more than 128 Mb of ROM memory and 64 Mb of RAM.

The features on this new GPS PDA phone are very respectable, including a GPS chip SiRFStar III, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi 802.11b/g, and a battery with a capacity of no less than 1500 mAh.

The price of the phone varies depending on the additional features you want included. With mapping France it is listed at a price of 424 euros and 478 for the Europe version.

One of the best features of the Airis T482 smartphone is that it is possible to buy it with or without GPS navigation software partner.

Via Mobinaute

• Samsung Galaxy. i7500 Android phone gets a name. Will launch in France early July
• Unlocked Blackberry 9000 Pics Found on eBay, Specs Revealed
• Blackberry Professional Software for Small Business Offered by AT&T
• Samsung Louvre B7610 to feature an AMOLED screen, 5MP camera and more
• Review: GSmart t600

Some even questioned whether it’s real at all, since nobody ever heard before about a phone maker called Zenum.

Zenum Opus Operis is a triband GSM (900, 1800 and 1900)/GPRS Windows Mobile Phone with 2.5″ 320×240px resolution touchscreen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and 2 megapixel camera.

And it seems that Zenum Opus Operis is real afterall. Zenum has updated their site with the message that Zenum Opus Operis will be released this spring and pdadb.net also has added it to the list of devices with the March release date.

So we me see it pretty soon actually, maybe even at CeBit 2007 next week.

• Zenum OPUS PDA Phone In May. OPUS 3G Next Year
• "Vaporware" gets real: Zenum Opus PDA phone launching tomorrow, Art Lebedev’s Optimus Maximus in 3 days
• Zenum Organum Mp3/Mp4 Player. It’s all about looks baby!
• Sony Ericsson K660i, SE W890 and 380 Walkman coming on Nov. 6th. Sony Ericsson P5i and M610i Lizy smartphones… Who knows? Nov. 15th, maybe?
• Nokia Aeon launching next week. April Fool’s come a week early to Netherlands