The Eris is basically a mini Hero. It’s slightly thinner and clad in all black and but the Sense UI is in place and all of the things that made the Hero great – responsive OS, apps, and social networking connectivity – are here. One thing lacking, however, is the “latest” version of Android with its superior navigation application and multi-touch.

I asked some HTC folks about what was going on and they informed me that HTC is sticking with Sense UI and that some of the tweaks they did to pre-2.0 Android didn’t mesh well with the latest version. The result is, as I’ve mentioned before, a new “branch” of the OS.

To be sure HTC can’t sit on the sidelines with this for long, but it’s abundantly clear that the issue of non-centralized OS development is rearing its head here. This is Anrdoids blessing and its curse and I think the real problems will occur when handset manufacturers try to hide Android behind their own proprietary masks, much in the way TiVo and Kindle use Linux on the inside but make not mention of it.

It’s a question of when, not if, HTC will go 2.0. But for now they’re sitting things out and perfecting their UI going forward.

Update: We just heard back from HTC, and it appears that the Eris does in fact have multitouch in certain areas. They (being HTC) added multitouch capabilities through their own coding using android 1.x, so as a result the code isn’t available to 3rd party developers. But for the record, the Eris does have multitouch in the photo album and a few other places.

The announcement, which basically says that there are over 100,000 applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch with some of the true winners – Smule’s I Am T-Pain, for example – getting 10,000 or more downloads a day.

Clearly the concept of an app store is compelling. Why, then, hasn’t this taken off in the Windows Mobile space and why hasn’t Anrdoid’s market truly taken off?

The singular reason is obviously OS age, in Microsoft’s case, and OS fragmentation, in Android’s case. We’ll ignore Symbian for now because, well, it’s a nice operating system but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has been around for almost a decade. All the apps that could have been made for it have been made for it and, like a tired mule team the developers just can’t push out any more juice. Sure, you can make plenty of cash in the WinMo arena, but it’s all on your own marketing dime. Apple excels at marketing.

In Android’s case you have multiple “branches” of the OS for multiple devices. HTC and Motorola have their own UI tweaks and these branches for programmers to recompile for multiple devices. This, obviously, is a big issue for mom and pop shops run by a few developers and even worse for the 14-year-olds out there building apps in their basements.

So Apple’s refusal to expand its product line has finally paid off. By creating a regimented army of drone devices to run its marketplace they’ve ensured absolute compatibility at the cost of, potentially, consumer choice.

But, and I state this only to be devil’s advocate, does this consumer choice come with too great a cost — namely an app ecosystem that underperforms for the average consumer?

Rumor has it that Dell will bring the Mini 3i to the U.S. in the next few months to compete with other Android phones coming down the pike from HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.

The phone, presumably still in its Chinese trade dress, felt “cheap and plasticky, like the Pre,” according our tipster. He believes it will be upgraded for the American market.

The phone has better hardware than the Chinese version and a slightly better camera – probably 5-megapixel over the Chinese 3-megapixel. It is slimmer than the iPhone and the interface mimics, as seen from this photo, the iPhone’s icon-based launcher UI.

Interestingly, Dell is splintering the Android stack and shipping the phone with modified or missing Android libraries, making it a bit harder to program. The tipster reported that some apps won’t work on this version.

Dell hasn’t sold a smartphone since the Axim X51, an ill-fated WinMo PDA-alike last sold in 2007. This return to the smartphone market seems to be a direct attack on the WinMo architecture as Dell could have easily gone with something like Windows Mobile 6.5.

We’ll have photos of the new phone this week but we’ll add this to our Palm Pre and Pixi announcements as interesting new phones from ostensibly U.S.-based companies.

Looks like those guys over at Gizmodo managed to snag a list of some upcoming possible Verizon handset releases from a “reliable source”. Looks like the:

Casio C731 Rock
Casio C741 Brigade
HTC Imagio
LG VX8575 Chocolate Touch
Motorola V860 Barrage
Pantech TXT8030 Razzle
RIM Curve 2
RIM Storm 2
Samsung Saga 2
Samsung Omnia 2

As far as Android devices:

HTC Desire
Motorola Tao or Droid

will all be available from Verizon before the end of November.

Come back with me to 2001. A young man got up on stage one afternoon in November to announce something new and amazing: an operating system dedicated to tablet computing. That young man was Microsoft’s Bill Gates and that operating system was Windows XP Tablet PC edition.

Chances are that is the first and last time you saw a working tablet computer. Laptops, then, were monsters. They were heavy – 10 pounds or more – had small, bad batteries, and WiFi was just a dream for most people. It seemed, in those dark years, that laptop manufacturers could shave off pounds and complexity by removing the keyboard and offer a pen-based OS. After all, this was a post-PalmOS era when handwriting recognition was an input option we all knew and understood.

The thinking was this: if you can streamline applications – data entry applications being the target here – you could sell smaller, more expensive computers to medical and business clients. It didn’t work and Windows Tablet PC has been little more than a clever solution to a nonexistent problem.

So what’s with all the tablet talk lately?

We have entered an era of the thin and light computer and, rather than worrying about power we’ve become obsessed with the concept of thinness. This is why Apple, in their wisdom, created the MacBook Air and the iPod Touch. This is the same reason we are all salivating over the thought of tablets thinner than an issue of BusinessWeek and this is why laptop manufacturers – and Michael Arrington – are rushing to make them.

The Apple Tablet (or iPad or Tapplet) is real. It will have a capacitive touch screen and manufacturing difficulties are slowing down the tablet’s release to a crawl, thereby preventing us all from having one. It will be thin and, like the abhorrent HP DreamScreen, will focus on media. The extant tablet verticals – mostly in the medical industry – will still exist.

Note this new focus. Rather than trying to create a business machine, manufacturers understand people want bigger screens on which to consume web and media content.

So what can we expect in the next year? Well, first we have the CrunchPad. When all the bugs are worked out, it will be an amazing device – I’ve seen it. And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been intimately involved in the design process, because I wasn’t – that gives me a bit of perspective. Expect the CrunchPad to be a excellent device for blogging – that’s what Mike made it for – and for web apps. Don’t Expect much in the way of media. [I was wrong.]

Then there’s the iPad. This will eclipse the industry and for the rest of the year that’s all you’ll hear about. Trust me. Apple could require you to give this device three drops of blood every morning in order to satisfy the demonic hell-beast soul trapped inside it and we would, gladly. The release will be on par with the iPhone release and they’ll sell a million of them.

Then you have Microsoft’s Courier. It’s impressive, but it’s Microsoft; don’t expect that thing to take shape for two years and don’t expect it to take off until the second generation. Like the Zune, Microsoft will make a product but they won’t make it good until they have a little time to mull it over. I don’t think the Courier will be a player in 2010.

As for the rest of the devices, expect slow uptake by price conscious consumers and folks who don’t think it’s “cool” to own “name brand” technology and are real “hackers” (read: teenagers and European students). Archos, for example, is doing a lot of good work in the tablet space but they’re an also-ran. They are going the Tablet OS route, which is no good. Creative has some devices planned and it’s also clear that ChromeOS could power a nice device – provided HTC makes it.

As for connectivity most of these will have a 3G option – although I doubt the iPad will have 3G built-in. WiFi is an obvious second-best.

As for size, tablets, at least with capacitive screens, are weighed down by a huge hunk of metal that shields the electronics from the screen. This hunk of metal – and the glass – prevents us from getting a bigger iPod Touch and is what is keeping the iPad from coming out sooner. Once the world’s (i.e. China’s) scientists solve this problem we’ll get what we want. Until then it’s resistive all the way.

So prepare yourselves for the coming tablet wars and sock away a little cash because things are going to get interesting in 2010.

Ready to dump out a chunk of change to AT&T for your next smartphone? Need to know how much to pull out of the “non-essentials” (food, hygiene, etc) savings? This might help.

BGR managed to finagle some details over the weekend, shedding a light on the price points for the HTC Pure (Touch2), HTC Tilt2 (Touch Pro2), along with the long-fabled Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60.

According to what they’re hearing, pricing is as following:

• Tilt2: $199.99 ($149.99 after mail in rebate) with contract, launching around mid-October.
• Touch Pro2: $299.99 with contract, making their Touch Pro2 cheaper than T-Mobile and Sprint’s, but not Verizon’s.
• nuvifone G60: $299.99 with contract, which seems pretty damn high to us when compared to other handsets that AT&T offers for less.

So what do you think – are any of these calling your name? Are you as shocked as we are to see the nuvifone G60 finally coming stateside?

I love the Hero, even in the form that the phone took in Sprint’s able hands. While the comparisons to another Sprint phone will be rampant, I’m here to tell you that this isn’t the Palm Pre and that this phone is my favorite phone, other than the phone that starts with “i” and rhymes with iPhone. The Hero, in this incarnation, is a perfect mix of form and function.

First, for an earlier look at the Hero drop over here for my original review.

The old Hero, the same as the new Hero

When we looked at the Hero a few months ago it was very similar in size and shape to the T-Mobile MyTouch. The first thing you’ll notice about this version is that the chin is gone, replaced by a jowl. The jowl bumps out delicately, tipped in a white trackball, and the buttons have been integrated into the phone’s metallic base.

The phone has a 5-megapixel camera and runs on Sprint’s 3G network. There is no SIM card slot – don’t ask if it will run on AT&T or T-Mobile – and it has a MicroSD card for expansion.

Sprint is famous for stuffing all sorts of extraneous stuff onto their phone decks and this phone is no different. The kit includes an NFL widget, exclusive to Sprint, along with Sprint’s Navigator and NASCAR apps. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on your position on extraneous junk programs, Sprint TV is missing from the front page along with Sprint’s media store. Instead you have the Amazon MP3 store.

The phone runs on Sprint’s high-speed network; browsing was pleasant and email a breeze. A certain subset of users will also notice that the traditional rooting and tethering systems are disabled on this phone.

As for the old Hero lag, I’m proud to report that this phone is now a monster. The screens, even with a few hearty widgets like Twitter and email, are snappy and all of the apps respond with an intensity thus far reserved in bellboys at major luxury hotels. Even the touchscreen is responsive and bright. The keyboard, however, takes a little getting used to if you’ve been using the iPhone or another Android model. In short, however, this is a nice phone.

The camera and camcorder are fairly standard but the autofocus is quite nice. I did have a problem with the model I received. The focus was fairly poor and it seemed that there was some sort of film over the lens. This was, however, an early model and could have suffered a factory defect.

Battery life has been a mixed bag but with email and messaging running I’ve seen about a day per charge.

The rest is just gravy. The Hero’s social networking integration is its most important feature and the speed with which the Hero links Facebook and Twitter profiles is impressive. Unlike the Pre, which chokes on anything more than a few hundred contacts, my entire 300+ contact library was sucked in from Google and easily connected with the attendant Facebook contacts.

The Hero is the future of feature cellphones. It is well-built, runs a free and customized operating system, and it does everything the average user could need. It’s not the perfect smartphone – like the iPhone it doesn’t quite play well with corporate Interwebs in its current incarnation – but that will change. Android, too, is the future of feature phones, something Microsoft and Nokia will ignore at their peril. Your Mom’s next phone, even if she doesn’t know what she’s getting, will probably be an Android phone. The OS is that versatile.

Bottom Line
The Hero is Android perfected and it is an excellent phone. I would recommend it over the Palm Pre and, dare I say it, something like the iPhone 3G. $180 isn’t too much to pay for the best Android phone on the market.

The Pixi is a non-slider with touchscreen and full keyboard. It will cost about $149 with two year contract and rebates on Sprint. You have 8GB of on board storage and it takes 2-megapixel pictures – down from the Pre’s 3-megapixels.

There is no Wi-Fi, a dealbreaker for many. The Pixi will be available in multiple “Artist Series” styles and will be available around the holidays.

The Pre costs about $199 – cut to $99 for a bit and then raised back up – so a $50 savings isn’t much when it comes to a device without Wi-Fi. I think the average smartphone buyer is looking for a few things in a device – a touchscreen, 3G networking, and, ideally, some alternative form of transfer. This doesn’t have it.

That said, it’s a fascinating move by Palm. Either they wanted to bury this news in the Apple event today or they foolishly thought this would overshadow the event. I’m betting on the former.

WebOS is a contender but with phones like the Hero and the Tattoo appearing on the horizon and HTC really taking a a hard look at its competitors – and eating them – Palm may be barking up the wrong tree.

We’ll have hands on later today.

Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts

Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips

Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 9, 2009 – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today introduced the Palm® Pixi™ phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS™ platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.

“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”

In addition to linking your information from Google™, Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy™ and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk™ or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)

Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.

Personalization with Style

For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).

You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp™.(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)

“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”

The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.

Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.

Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.

Palm Pixi Features

High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
High-performance, desktop-class web browser
Integrated GPS(8)
Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
USB mass storage mode
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627™ chipset
Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
Sprint services, including Sprint TV® and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live

Availability and Pricing

The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.

In addition, effective today the Palm Pre™ phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.

That was quick. Forget about the rumor, the redesigned HTC Hero will launch on October 11 at $180 after a $50 mail-in rebate. And yes, that’s $20 under Sprint’s guided missile, the Palm Pre. So let’s recap, Sprint will soon be the only carrier with three of the hottest cellphones: the BlackBerry Tour, the Palm Pre, and the HTC Hero. And the carrier has some of the most reasonably priced plans. Nice.

Sprint’s first device with the Android™ platform available Oct. 11;
Pre-register for HTC Hero today at www.sprint.com/hero

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., and BELLEVUE, Wash. – Sept. 3, 2009 – Sprint (NYSE: S) and HTC Corporation today announced the upcoming arrival of the first wireless device offering the combination of the open and innovative Android platform with the high-speed connectivity of America’s most dependable 3G network1 (EVDO Rev. A), HTC Hero™ with Google™. Offering a rich mobile Internet experience, the much-anticipated HTC Hero offers synchronization for built-in Google mobile services, including Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™, and YouTube™ as well as access to thousands of applications built on the Android platform.

Beginning on Oct. 11, customers will be able to purchase HTC Hero through all Sprint retail channels including Web (www.sprint.com), Telesales (1-800-SPRINT1) and our national retail partner Best Buy for $179.99 (excluding taxes) after a $50 instant savings and a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year service agreement. Pre-registration begins today at www.sprint.com/hero.

Access to countless applications
As a charter member of the Open Handset Alliance™, Sprint is actively engaged with the Android community. Through Android Market™, HTC Hero users have access to more than 8,000 useful applications, widgets and fun games to download and install on their phone, with many more to come. Thousands of developers are working to introduce new Android applications every day.

Intuitive, user-focused and fun
HTC Hero is the first U.S. device to feature HTC Sense, an intuitive experience that was built with a guiding philosophy to put people at the center and allows the device to be completely customized to the wants and needs of the user. The device’s seven-panel wide home screen can be populated with customizable widgets that bring information to the surface.

HTC Hero users can easily create and switch between Scenes to reflect different moments or roles in their lives, such as work, social, travel and play. For example, a work Scene can be easily set up to include stock updates, work email and calendar, a play Scene could have music, weather, and a Twitter feed or a travel Scene could offer instant access to the local time, weather and maps.

Industry-leading features
HTC Hero features an integrated 5.0 MP camera and camcorder. It also offers easy access to personal and business e-mail, instant messaging and text messaging through POP, IMAP, and Exchange Active Sync accounts.

HTC Hero is a full-featured smartphone with Wi-Fi capability, a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen with pinch-to-zoom capability and a fingerprint resistant coating, integrated GPS navigation, and trackball navigation. Additional features include:
Stereo Bluetooth® 2.0 Wireless technology
accelerometer, light sensor and home screen widgets for improved usability
multimedia capable with microSD slot (32GB capable, 2GB included)
Sprint TV® with live and on-demand programming
NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup MobileSM
easy access to social networking sites, including Facebook®, Flickr® and Twitter
visual voice mail for quick and easy access to specific voice mail messages

HTC Hero requires activation on a pricing plan offering unlimited data. Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, e-mail, social networking, Web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. That’s a savings of $1,200 over two years vs. a comparable AT&T iPhone® plan2. Sprint Everything Data plans with unlimited messaging and data start at just $69.99 for 450 minutes with unlimited night and weekend calling starting at 7 p.m. (All price plans exclude Sprint surcharges and taxes.)

Want Fieldrunners but don’t have an iPhone or Touch? You’re in luck — if you’ve got a PSP Go. The long-overdue tiny games market for the PSP is going to be launching, starring low-priced, sub-100MB games called Minis. 100MB is actually extremely generous; every game for a 16-bit system was far below that, and freeware games like Cave Story and La-Mulana (though both getting high-def remakes) are far below the limit as well. You can bet there’ll be some gems on this service.

Even if there isn’t too much developer interest at first, there are a fair number of iPhone games that can be ported over. Pricing is expected to be between $1 and $5, like most iPhone games. Man, if I had a PSP Go I’d be happy as hell right now; this could be a really fruitful marketplace.

[via 1up]

Lets say you just finished hacking and cracking your myTouch 3G through the just unveiled rooting process. With the myTouch lagging behind some other in the looks department, your first quest is to retheme it. You’d heard about a Palm Pre skin, which decks Android out with Pre-esque visuals from top to bottom. Partly out of spite and partly out of genuine curiosity, you set out to find it.

Sorry Charlie, it’s too late.

This means that only die-hard Windows Mobile fans will use the quality phone. No matter how good the hardware is on the Touch Pro 2, there isn’t any reason why someone should spend an extra $150 on it over the Android-power myTouch 3G. Hopefully Verizon doesn’t make the same mistake when the Touch Pro 2 launches in a few weeks on its network.

Can Microsoft’s latest Zune, the Zune HD, take down the king? It depends on which king you’re talking about. As it stands, the iPod Touch is a whole different beast because of the App Store. What Microsoft has done with the Zune HD is nothing short of spectacular, but who is it really competing with? My BlackBerry can play videos and show me pictures taken on a recent trip. The HTC Hero and/or myTouch 3G can stream music from the likes of last.fm or Slacker. I can download MP3s from my iPhone. Everything the Zune HD does, I’ve been able to do with a slew of different devices that I already own.

You see, the features that the Zune team has been touting don’t interest me much. I don’t really care to see an artist’s bio, their pictures or anything of that nature. Sure, the modified IE browser is nice and works great, but I want to know how deeply integrated the Zune HD is going to be with other Microsoft devices like the Xbox 360. I don’t need to fork over extra cash for an HD dock to stream 720p content onto my TV. I can already do that through my Xbox 360, FiOS and whatever content is stored on my NAS. Tell me what the plans are for the next six months. Tell me when the damn thing is actually going to launch.

With that being said, please enjoy the short video that I took of the Zune HD in action. One thing I failed to capture was the on-screen keyboard. MS has taken a different twist, which may or may not be unique to the Zune HD, but it’s different than most other on-screen keyboards that I’ve seen. Unlike the iPhone (or any other device that lacks a physical keyboard) when you’re tapping away at the Zune HD’s on-screen keyboard; characters don’t pop up by themselves. Tap a character and its neighboring chums to the right and left will create a small arch with the center character popping up just a little more than the rest. It seemed to work well, but the firmware isn’t final so I’m unable to fully comment.

Image courtesy of Ben Patterson

“Intro” by The xx

The only other misstep I noticed was with the home button and Internet browser. When you’re navigating through every other feature of the Zune HD, a single tap of the home button brings you back to the main page, but when tapping the home button from within the browser it chorks hard. It takes two or three taps to get back to the home screen. But, again, the Zune HD I took a look at was definitely not final in any way. Also, the Wi-Fi at our meeting location was spotty.

Things are looking good for Microsoft and the Zune team with the HD, but I’m still waiting to hear what they have in store for the device because everything else is old hat.

What do we have here? The new hotness? mhmm. The HTC Touch Pro 2 is still a while away from being launched but somehow it was placed in front of a camera lens. Overall, it looks great with a clever eatching of the world on the backplate, a 3.5mm jack on the bottom, and a sleek design when it’s closed. Hopefully the keyboard works as well as it looks. According to the tipster, Verizon will probably have the phone sometime in early September.

Huzzah! Verizon knows what’s up. The prices of its smartphones have been slashed, cut, and discounted down to iPhone 3G levels. Every single smartphone – expect for the new BlackBerry Tour and Samsung Saga – can be had for $99 or less on-contract. This means that the HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, and Samsung Omnia are now only $99 straight up. It’s like Verizon is talking right to those feed up with AT&T’s shenanigans.

There was one question that constantly popped up after Apple dropped the price of the iPhone 3G down to $99: Why would anyone buy a different phone? The answer of course has to do with the monthly service plan and that AT&T is notoriously a terrible wireless provider, but the question is sort of valid. The iPhone 3G is a heck of a phone for $99.

Before this price cut, the iPhone 3G ruled the $99 price point and it may still, but at least it now has competition. Both of the HTC smartphones from VZW are solid Winmo devices. The Samsung Omnia has a killer display and a 5.0MP camera. To be honest, the BlackBerry Storm isn’t half bad after the latest update. (I use one daily)

Hopefully the $99 price point isn’t just for these somewhat older phones and VZW introduces new smartphones at the same price.