Microsoft will begin shipping Windows 7 on October 22.  But today through July 11 in the United States and Canada, you can pre-order the Windows 7 operating system for as little as $49.

Like Vista, Windows 7 will be available in several flavors.  Windows 7 Home Premium is the edition most Vista users will likely want to upgrade to, but Windows 7 Professional (which includes an XP virtual machine) may be a better upgrade for some business users. 

The Home Premium upgrade discounted price is $49, but increase to $119 after the pre-order sale ends. The Professional upgrade pre-order price is $99, but will cost $199 post-discount.

We’ve been using Windows 7 (the Beta and the Release Candidate) for a few months and are very impressed by how solid it is even in the testing phase.  If you’re a Vista user and don’t plan on buying a new PC in the next year or so, get in on this 50% off sale before it’s over!

LetsTalk.com is offering the new Sprint HTC Snap Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Smartphone for $79 (including shipping) at checkout with a two-year service agreement. 

That’s $170 less than the Sprint direct price, plus you don’t have to wait weeks or months to get the $100 mail-in rebate Sprint is currently offering.

Have you found the Sprint HTC Snap smartphone for less than $79?  Let us know.

We told you in April that Engadget had gotten wind of an HTC Snap variant heading to Verizon Wireless.  As is so often the case, the tech news site was pretty spot on, and today Verizon made it official.  Meet the HTC Ozone XV6175.

With a somewhat different look than its Sprint Snap and T-Mobile Dash 3G siblings, the HTC Ozone skips the trackball system navigation system in favor of a more traditional 5-way directional pad.  The QWERTY keyboard is also a bit different, but in most other ways, the Ozone is a Snap through and through.

Features include Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard (non-touchscreen), a 528MHz CPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, aGPS, 2MP camera, and microSDHC slot.  Although the Ozone is a CDMA phone, it also has a SIM card slot for use outside the U.S. on GSM/GPRS networks.

The HTC Ozone will be available from the Verizon Wireless online store beginning June 29, with in-store availability to follow in mid-July.  The price, with a two-year service agreement and $70 mail-in rebate will be $49.  Not bad.

Verizon Wireless Press Release

Game description:

YOU are the captain of the USS Enterprise in this action-packed shoot-em up based on the blockbuster movie. Soar through galaxies as you race to complete your campaigns. Pick up new weapons and fight valiantly alongside and against famous ships and races from the Star Trek Universe. Collect power-ups to increase the abilities of your ship including speed, energy and firepower. Explore the depth of the score system and get higher ratings on the high-score ladder. Get beamed up!

Download from Handango

We’ve known it was coming for some time, but now we know when; the T-Mobile Dash 3G (a.k.a.HTC Maple 100, Snap, S522), the successor to the long-lived Dash, will be released in July.

Sprint has begun selling its version of the Dash 3G, the Sprint HTC Snap.

As the name suggests, the new Dash is 3G-ready with UMTS and HSDPA built in – this is something the original Dashed lacked.  However, T-Mobile has the smallest 3G deployment of any of the four major U.S. wireless carriers, so if you want the Dash 3G for the 3G part, you’d better check T-Mobile’s coverage maps before you get too excited.

Link: T-Mobile Dash 3G User Manual

Today was a busy one for the good folks at Samsung; they announced a new family of phones, including the upcoming Omnia II, a Windows Mobile touchscreen phone that’ll be sold by Verizon Wireless (at least) later this year.

We have most of the details on the Omnia II: 3.7” AMOLED touchscreen, up to 16GB of onboard flash memory, microSDHC card slot (good for another 32GB once the cards are available), aGPS, 480p (DVD quality) video shooting on a 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, aGPS… it’s loaded.

Availability is expected around September, but device delays are legendary.  We’ll keep you posted.

A CDMA version of the HTC Snap is coming to Sprint officially on June 21st, but those who want to get their hands on one sooner can grab one at Best Buy today.

The Sprint HTC Snap (S511) is a Messenger-class Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Smartphone (no touchscreen) with EV-DO Rev A., 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, a microSDHC memory card slot, and aGPS. 

This model replaces the Motorola Q 9c.

Sprint was originally planning to release the Snap on June 7, but pushed back the release in order to focus attention on the Palm Pre.

The new iPhone 3G S is faster than the iPhone 3G, twice as fast or more when opening applications and viewing large documents.  This is because the 3G S has a faster processor and more system memory.  There’s also a new 3MP camera which can shoot photos or video, and you can edit the video on the iPhone.  Voice Control allows you to make calls, control iTunes and more by pressing and holding the Home button and speaking commands. 

The new iPhone will be available in 16GB and 32GB capacities for $199 and $299 respectively.  The 8GB iPhone 3G will continue to be sold for $99.  Rather than July, as many had expected, the iPhone 3G S will launch on or around June 19th in the United States.

Opera Mobile 9.7 beta adds Opera Turbo, a server-size compression technology (à la Skyfire) that shrinks requested data before sending it to your handset; this saves time, particularly if you’re on a slower connection (EDGE) and is designed to make the mobile Web a bit more speedy.  It also decreases the amount of bandwidth required to browse the web up to 80%.  That’s good if you have a limited amount of bandwidth per month on your data plan.

In our quick test of 9.7, we certainly felt the speed increase; pages loaded quickly, panning and zooming was smoother and less jerky, and the entire experience feels more desktop-esque.

View a more complete list of Opera Mobile 9.7’s features or download the new version.

High-speed 802.11n Wi-Fi may soon be available on Windows Mobile Smartphones and other mobile devices thanks to Qualcomm’s new WCN1312 wireless chip.

“The new WCN1312 chip uses low-power 65nm CMOS technology and advanced power-management techniques to minimize sleep, standby and active power consumption. It is optimized for performance with Qualcomm’s complete Mobile Station Modem(TM) (MSM(TM)) solutions and supports a variety of mobile operating systems, including Qualcomm’s Brew Mobile Platform(R), Android and Windows Mobile. The WCN1312 chip is the industry’s first mobile handset device to support both 1×1 and 1×2 dual-receive configurations to increase range and data throughput performance when needed. The WCN1312 solution also implements advanced coexistence architecture and algorithms to optimize performance when paired with Qualcomm’s Bluetooth(R) solutions.” [Source: PRNewsWire]

The WCN1312 will hopefully begin showing up in Windows Mobile, Android and other handsets in Q4 2009.

Sony Ericsson has released a new ROM update for the XPERIA X1 Windows Mobile touchscreen smartphone. 

The update address touch response issues, updates the Media Panel and contains various fixes and patches for the X1.

To get the update, download and install the Update Service software, then run the utility to check for applicable updates for your smartphone.

Thanks to Kara for the heads-up.

We’ve been watching Skyfire for what seems like ages.  And, today, we’re happy to report that the Windows Mobile version of the browser is no longer in beta; v1.0 is ready to roll (and download).

For those who don’t know, Skyfire is a mobile web browser that works with its own servers to do the heavy lifting – Ajax, Flash, Silverlight, etc. – off-device, then the server sends the finished product to your smartphone. This model has several advantages, chief among them the ability to interact with Web 2.0 sites like Hulu, Twitter and Facebook.

Skyfire works with smartphones running Windows Mobile 5 & 6, and both non-touchscreen and touchscreen interfaces.  It’s also free, so head over to http://get.skyfire.com and give it a try.
 

First, and foremost: the HTC Touch Pro2 and Touch Diamond2.  The leaked slides list these smartphones as the HTC Warhawk (Touch Diamond2) and the HTC Fortress T7377 / T7378 (Touch Pro2).  The Warhawk is listed as running Windows Mobile 6.5 at release, while the Fortress shows WM6.1.  The documents’ release dates are a bit suspect, but you can probably expect to see these Windows Phones around August or September.

Next, the LG HQ.  This is also listed as a Windows Mobile 6.1 handset.  It has no touchscreen, and features a love-it-or-hate-it SureType keyboard.  Other features include HSDPA, aGPS, a microSDHC card slot and a 2MP camera.

Last, but not least, the Samsung Pivot, a Messenger-class touchscreen Windows Mobile handset powered by WM6.1 (at least on release).  Features include a full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, HSDPA, a 3MP camera, microSDHC, 4GB of onboard flash storage and aGPS.  Release may be sometime around October.

We’ve added the slides for each product to the jump page.

Some of the “facts” listed on these slides are suspect.  Some dates don’t seem plausible.  As with all leaked information, details should be considered as rumor only until officially confirmed.

All images courtesy of Engadget Mobile.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had any rock-solid, exciting iPAQ news to bring you.  You can judge for yourself how exciting this is, but we think it’s pretty cool.

HP will release a new iPAQ smartphone later this year, the iPAQ K3 “Obsidian,” and unlike its most recent devices, the K3 will be sold directly by a U.S. wireless carrier: AT&T Mobility. 

The iPAQ K3 will also run Windows Mobile 6.5, which is due out later this year.  It has a flush QVGA touchscreen display, 512MB of onboard flash memory, a microSDHC memory card slot, onboard GPS, and Wi-Fi.  With the inclusion of Windows Mobile 6.5, there’s little need for a stylus, and HP has decided to leave one out.

No word yet on pricing, but according to the product slide obtained by Engadget (which is the source for all of our current K3 information), the iPAQ K3 will be released by AT&T in November.

If you’ve been eying the new Samsung Jack i637 Windows Mobile Smartphone, this is for you.

LetsTalk.com now offers the Jack free at purchase with a new AT&T service plan.  That’s pretty cool in itself since AT&T sells the Jack for $200 up front, followed by a $100 mail-in rebate. But LetsTalk is doing one better: They’re also tacking on a mail-in rebate of their own, good for $50.

To get the Samsung Jack FREE click this link, then scroll all the way down the page. There you’ll find the Jack and the details on this deal.

UPDATE: If you’re already an AT&T customer and want to upgrade to the Samsung Jack, LetsTalk offers an upgrade with contract extension deal that puts the final price of the Jack at $0.99 with no mail-in rebate.  Some restrictions apply.  Find details by following the instructions above.

UPDATE 5/26: The $50 rebate has been pulled, however the Jack is still free at LetsTalk.com.

NOTE: The Samsung Jack was released only a few days ago.  Model-specific accessories are currently limited. We will continue to update the new accessories center with new products over the coming weeks.

Visit the Pocket PC Central Samsung Jack i637 Accessories Center…

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the latest addition to AT&T Mobility’s extensive smartphone line-up. 

Originally set to debut tomorrow, the Curve 8900 was posted today in AT&T’s online store.  The price: $199 with a two-year service agreement and a $100 mail-in rebate.

The Curve 8900 boasts Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and aGPS, but does not have HSDPA 3G mobile broadband connectivity.  Other features include a microSDHC memory card slot (for adding up to 16GB of storage), a 3.2MP digital camera, turn-by-turn navigation, a QWERTY keyboard, and a non-touchscreen display.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is now available for order the AT&T Mobility web site and should come to third-party retailers in the next couple of weeks.