We love ourselves a good back-and-forth battle between two competitors, and it looks like Thuraya is diving in the ring head first (and finally bringing the goods) to take on the highly-praised Globalstar. While the GSP-1700 sports a relatively slim, sexy design and weighs just 7.1 ounces, it has already become second place thanks to a pair of new satellite phones by Thuraya. The firm's SO-2510 (purely SAT) comes in at just 4.59 ounces, and sports a 4.66- x 2.09- x 0.74-inch enclosure, but still manages to include a 1.5-inch LCD, GPS / satellite services, USB connectivity, and a battery providing 2.4 hours of talk time (plus 40 hours in standby). The slightly larger (albeit GSM-equipped) SG-2520 rocks Tri-band capabilities, a 1.9-inch LCD, 1.3-megapixel camera, 128MB of internal memory, an SD slot, and still manages to hit the scales at just 6 ounces. Both phones are listed as "coming soon," but we're a bit more inclined to believe it this time around with all the buzz hovering over its main competitor.

[Read - Thuraya SO-2510, via MobileWhack]
[Read - Thuraya SG-2520, via MinistryOfTech]