The Nokia E66 will be hitting the U.S. in the third quarter with an unsubsidized price of $500. While that price may sound like it’s a bit (or a lot) on the high side, the phone actually has a fair number of tricks up its sleeve and will likely appeal mostly to corporate users who may never see the price tag to begin with.

Lest you think this device is all business, there’s a unique (and perhaps a bit gimmicky) “switch mode” that allows you to basically keep all of your work-related stuff in one profile on the phone throughout the day and then switch to a more lifestyle-centric profile at night, complete with a darker theme, friendlier icons, and that kind of stuff. Picture an employee for a large company getting in the elevator at the end of the day, loosening the tie and switching phone modes before getting into a cab to go wait in line for some new overpriced, dark, loud, small-portions restaurant.

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Hype, hype, hype. Now that the iPhone 3G launch has blown over and I’ve been able to integrate the phone into my daily routine, I think we’re ready for an official CrunchGear review. Our advice? Wait. With 60% certainty I predict a minor hardware or, more likely, software update in the next month or to improve the 3G’s thus far abysmal battery life.

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Nokia’s N-Series is an odd amalgam of high-tech and low, melding some of the best smartphone technology with phones that haven’t changed much since the first proto-Finns heaved their bark boats onto the rocky beaches of Soumenlinna and began fashioning crude cellphones out of cork and shale.

Much has changed about the Nokia line over the years but all of the phones are refreshingly familiar. Whether they are clamshells, candybars, or sliders the buttons are always in the same place, the maddening power switch is still at the top, and the old menu-asterisk unlock code is still in force, ensuring your phone will never unlock itself under any circumstances. Nokia knows how to make good phones.

Sadly, however, the latest N-series N78 didn’t quite grab me the way its older siblings like the N95 did. Was it the form factor? The speed? The size?

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We received the Instinct a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write up my impressions on it after using it for just about a week straight. I’m happy to report that the Instinct on Sprint is a capable and powerful smartphone and, in a way, is a direct competitor to the iPhone generation 1 (iPhone 3G doesn’t fit into this equation, but I suspect I’d say the same thing when we see it). Sadly, there are many caveats to this opinion and it would behoove Sprint and Samsung to quickly update the phone as soon as possible if they wish to have the blockbuster success that this device, in the end, deserves.

First the good. The Instinct interface is far superior to the iPhone’s simply because of haptic feedback. Much of the good ideas the iPhone uses – slide to unlock being one of the most important – are partially visible here and special care has clearly been taken to ensure that an apples to apples comparison is difficult if not impossible. Nothing in this phone is a direct knock-off and it is all fresh and slightly disconcerting at the same time. Once you work out the kinks, however, it is very strong interface and eminently usable.

We begin by unlocking the phone by holding down a button on the top. This direct physical interaction with the phone also turns it on and off, so care must be taken not to hold the button too long or it will turn off. The sliding metaphor appears quite a bit, however, especially in answering and making calls. For example, when a call comes in you are offered a floating bar. To answer, you slide the bar up to a box marked answer. To ignore, you slide the bar down. Weird, right? Strangely, it works. Another odd UI choice: When you make a call you type in the number and then press the bar that the number shows up in. You wouldn’t know it to look at the screen, but that was their design choice. It works although it does take a moment to figure out what’s going on.

Most importantly, the Instinct has haptic feedback. When you press a button or slide through emails or menus the phone buzzes and creates an interesting form of feedback. Haptics are not a must-have but they’re nice.

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Just got the HTC Touch Diamond smartphone today and I can tell you that it’s a pretty nice little gizmo. I’ll be taking it for a spin over the next few weeks, so if you have any questions about it or if you’d like me to try out any particular features, leave a message in the comments section and I’ll do my best to address your requests.

[UPDATE: Full review after the jump]

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The Palm Centro for Verizon is finally here. It’s coming in at the $99 price that many first-time smartphone buyers look for, but it doesn’t skimp on features, though it’s not as rich as its AT&T and Sprint cousins. But it has Sudoku!

The Centro

The Centro is Palm’s new low-end device, replacing the “p” series of Treo smartphones. Running Palm OS 5.4.9 Garnet, it’s compatible with thousands of add-on applications, but comes with enough built-in to be useful out of the box.

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I can’t even begin to tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this particular phone to reach the US. I was completely enamored with it, the F700, when I first saw the press release more than a year ago. This was back in February and then I finally got a chance to play with it in October when I was in Korea. I knew right then and there that I had to have it, but I wasn’t really willing to pay the exorbitant amount for an unlocked version from Europe. Then I caught wind of a CDMA variant that would be coming to the US. I was told it would probably be announced sometime before the end of 2007, but we all know that didn’t happen.

So I have before me the u940, which has been redubbed the Glyde. Do I love it? Yes. Do I hate it? Yes. Read More

The Access from Samsung is the more economical choice for those looking to drop some coin on AT&T’s Mobile TV service. The candy bar from Samsung fared much better than the LG Vu in terms of service quality, but its screen is much smaller and the rest of the phone is pretty plain Jane. There’s no Gmail, IMAP or POP support like the Vu. As big as the Access is there’s no QWERTY keyboard so I’m left wondering what exactly I’m getting for the $200 I’d pay for this phone.
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Do we really need another reason to rot our brains on the go? Apparently we do because live TV on your phone seems to be the next big thing for U.S. carriers. AT&T’s Mobile TV with FLO (forward link only AKA mobile TV) service coupled with the LG Vu is a match made in couch-potato heaven, so long as you’re running on 3G and not EDGE, but more on that later.
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The HTC Shift (CDMA version) is a UMPC with a 7-inch tilting screen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The device runs Windows Vista Business and connects to Sprint’s EVDO data network for on-the-go computing. At around $1500, the device is a no-brainer for businesses that need super tiny notebooks for salespeople or field technicians and it even falls into the temptation zone for well-paid casual computer users who want an awesome ultraportable machine.

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Here we go again: another Blackberry product with UMA from T-Mobile. If you travel at all, you need UMA on T-Mobile. Straight up. Say what you want about your Samsung Ace with SIM card slot. That’s weak sauce compared to a phone that works at any hotspot worldwide.

The 8120 is an updated Pearl with improved keyboard and Hotspot@Home support. Hotspot@Home is a $10/month service that allows you to make unlimited national calls over a hotspot, which is presumably found in your home. However, because H@H works anywhere in the world, you’ve really got the ultimate roaming phone.

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As promised we’ve given the LG Glimmer a good drubbing and came back satisfied that almost everyone would enjoy this sexy haptic slider from LG.

With the demise of the RAZR, phones have gone one of two directions — gloss black/dark or odd metals. The RAZR brought us into the chrome and steel era of cellphone design and I believe that LG is taking that aesthetic to the next level with the brushed metal of the Glimmer. In fact, this thing doesn’t glimmer at all. It’s very staid and elegant with a bright 2.8-inch touch screen and pop down buttons.

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The Treo

Verizon is the latest CDMA carrier to land the Palm Treo 755p, a high-end smartphone for the business user who’s tired of Windows Mobile but still wants all the connectivity and email options a smartphone provides.

While pricey, it’s a pretty impressive device worth considering.

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I’ve had the M520 from Samsung for well over a month now and my previous opinion about the Sprint device hasn’t changed. It’s a great phone with some great features. Sure, it looks plain and boring, but you can’t judge a book by its cover now can you? Samsung just knows what they’re doing when it comes to sliders and the M520 is no different. In fact, I think I like it better than its sexy counterpart over at Helio, the Mysto. OMG!
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I am more than willing to suspend my disbelief in all manner of situations. I, for example, still believe that my family and wife love me and that the world is not colluding to to kill me. I believe that what I am writing now matters, to some degree, and that it will help you in your day-to-day existence. I also believe that I will eventually return to my original college weight of 175 through liberal application of sparkling wine and chili. I may delude myself, but my delusions are not harmful.

Sadly, this is not the case with the Griffin ClearBoost iPhone case. This is a hard case with screen protector sticker and, I’m sad to say, a bit of metal that symbolizes one of the greatest scams perpetrated on mankind since the Kennedy assassination.

As a case I’m happy to report that the ClearBoost does everything as advertised. It encloses your iPhone in hard plastic and keeps it from breaking or scratching at inopportune moments. That, alone, might be worth $20.

Griffin has decided to add a cellboosting “technology” to this case, however, which knocks it up to $29. This is like adding paper wings to a cow and selling it for a million dollars. Scammers have been selling these “cell boosters” since the first Nokias crawled out of the pre-mordial soup and I recall one friend whose mother sent him a harmful EMF wave eating ladybug that he stuck against his phone to boost the reception and prevent brain cancer. While I cannot report definitively on the cancer (he’s OK now, but who knows about next week?), many tests have proven that putting a sticker on a radio does not improve reception.

Take this excellent quote from an excellent article on the topic:

Based on my testing, and the antenna theory as presented by the experts, cellphone antenna booster stickers do not work as advertised.

Based on their marketing techniques, including the imaginary or unverifiable “experts” stating they work, it’s my belief antenna booster stickers are a scam.

Pretty definitive, right? Now Griffin is a good company. I mean them no ill-will. They’ve been putting out good to great products for years and I’m sure someone in marketing was got the old snowjob on this product and is probably going to start kicking him or herself once folks figure out what’s going on here. Here’s a video purporting to offer proof:

Fair enough. Put case on, numbers go closer to zero, right? In my highly unscientific testing, however, I found the exact opposite. The first picture is with the case installed:

The second photo is with the case off:

Each time I put on the case, the numbers went “up,” presumably meaning signal strength degraded. At best this test can show inconclusive evidence that the case works to boost signals. This explains the phenomenon with some clarity. Basically, higher negative numbers are worse than lower ones and, as we see, these number consistently were “worse” with the case on, suggesting some sort of interference.

This case contains a sticker. It is made of metal. It does not boost your signal. However, it is a nice case and if you snip off the useless antenna — which, I happily discovered, contains some metal and is not simply there for show — you’ve got something quite nice.

I’m no radio engineer, but I can state that based on testing and research that this signal booster does not work. Heck of a nice case, though.

UPDATE – Peter and I just did a little test with the Griffin ClearBoost case on an unadulterated AT&T iPhone. The results, while far from conclusive, showed that with the case on and your hand over the antenna, near the bottom of the unit, the ClearBoost case allowed the phone to maintain a fairly strong signal. This does not mean you’ll have better call quality or faster Internet, per se, but it does mean that the ClearBoost is doing something to improve cell tower reception.

What isn’t there to love about T-Mobiles UMA VoIP Wi-Fi solution? Like mini-bar cashews and a nice upgrade to business class, T-Mobile knows what makes travelers happy, especially international financiers with a Spitzerian mistress in every port and a burgeoning Falstaffian gut. UMA to an international traveler is like finding a great restaurant in the hotel: you could get a new SIM card, go wander the world a bit, but why worry when you have everything you need in the lobby.

Add UMA — which basically lets you make and receive calls over any Wi-Fi connection anywhere in the world for local rates — to a Blackberry 8820 and you are basically in heaven.

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Not long ago, my good friend and distinguished colleague Peter Ha lamented that CDMA phones were relatively useless outside of the US because of their inability to roam on European networks. Well CDMA providers like Sprint and Verizon recognize this as a legitimate disadvantage and, as such, are beginning to offer phones that work on networks here but also contain slots for SIM cards, allowing them to function abroad as well. The Samsung Ace SPH-i325 on the Spint Network is one such phone.

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What would I have done the last few months without my precious Novatel broadband dongle from Sprint? I would have had a hard time bringing you news from the halls of CES without trekking over to the blounge. We would have been sans photos from the Macworld keynote. I also would not have been able to post videos while waiting at JFK for our adventures at CeBIT. I think you get the point. Road warriors, I understand your plight.

The Ovation U727 from Novatel on Sprint’s Rev. A network has been a blessing to say the least. Most of us have experienced Sprint’s EV-DO network so there isn’t much need to comment on that. It’s fast and gets the job done.
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When choosing a cell phone, you look at price and features with the former being the biggest player, right? Ok, calling/data plans are also a big deal, but most consumers just want a cheap phone regardless. That much we can agree on. But what happens when you don’t want to deal with one of the larger carriers and you’ve got MetroPCS in the area, a carrier that offers unlimited plans?

Since MetroPCS offers unlimited plans with no contracts, it basically boils down to the device. They’re not subsidized so you won’t be getting anything for free. So now what? Well, you can always go for one of the big players like Samsung or Motorola, but a little known company out of China has quietly infiltrated the US market with a relatively feature-rich clamshell. ZTE’s C88 isn’t necessarily the prettiest thing to look at, but its feature set is pretty decent. It includes Bluetooth, IM, a VGA camera, an MP3 player, Web browser and a few other things.

But is it any good?

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My kingdom for a dead-ass simple way to squeeze a little more juice out of my iPod Touch while I’m gallivanting across the globe living the life of a high-profile technology blogger. I need all the battery life I can get while I’m flying in fancy airplanes to conventions in such exotic locales as Las Vegas, Las Vegas and, of course, Las Vegas.

So does the Richard Solo (made by Sharper Image founder Richard Thalheimer) make for an easy-to-use, no nonsense backup battery? In my best impression of Marv Albert to date; “YESSS!!!”

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