Not long after spinning off from former corporate parent O2, Windows Mobile purveyor MWg is moving out of its Asian comfort zone to attempt to sell its wares over in Europe with a splashy press conference to kick things off -- and if the aggressive roadmap they're pursuing for the next year or so holds true, they might just have a fighting chance at making a splash up there. First up are the official European intros of the Atom V and Zinc II, HSDPA-equipped handsets that have been kicking around for a while now, but that's not even close to the interesting part. Looking deeper into '08 reveals a handful of HTC Diamond competitors, devices that are sporting a respectable 7.2Mbps down and 5.2Mbps up, and looking still deeper into the fourth quarter suggests that MWg intends to release its first Windows Mobile 7-powered device -- the Flame II -- with GPS, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and "multimedia features" on board. That seems a little far-fetched considering that 7 hasn't been officially shown off and 6.1 isn't even in broad distribution to users yet, but we appreciate MWg's motivation here. We also see a Shift killer in the wings with Vista and a 3G data connection toward the end of the year, so all told, the future's looking bright for these cats if they can actually execute.

Now that the BlackBerry 9000's been outed and reviewed, we guess there's little left for RIM to do but just get official with the darned thing. Looks like that might actually happen as soon as next week, with Boy Genius Report claiming that it'll happen on Monday, May 12, the first day of the Wireless Enterprise Symposium, going down in sunny Orlando. 'Course, there's a pretty significant difference between announcing a product and actually getting it into would-be buyers' hands, so we're going to keep our party favors and noisemakers firmly stowed until some carriers start to step up to the plate.

A Vertu it's not, but that's not stopping Motorola from borrowing Maranello's most prized symbol of speed and excess yet again. Last time around, Moto was trying its hand at reworking the Z8 into a phone befitting some of the world's most exotic cars -- an effort that we believe failed spectacularly, for the record -- and this time around it looks like the RAZR 2 V9 will be the unwitting target. Technologically, the phone's a dead ringer for its less-flashy cousin, but in terms of appearance... well, that's a whole different story, thanks to a checkered pattern on the phone's metal surface, red trim, and if we had to guess, a full range of Ferrari-themed pictures and sounds. Oh, and they've also managed to throw in a lambskin case embossed with the hallowed badge. No word on pricing, but it seems that it'll only be available in Asia and Latin America -- for a very small fraction of the price of the real thing, may we add.

While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for some sort of official confirmation that this thing even exists, Boy Genius Report has heard some rumblings that AT&T is putting the Nokia E71 through its paces with the intention of launching it -- in your choice of black or white, no less. Multiple Eseries colors certainly aren't without precedent, so we can buy that much -- and AT&T has previously launched the E62, so we can totally picture this going down. What's more, we've now heard from an independent source that the AT&T-branded E71 does in fact exist and is currently being crafted in Nokia's San Diego facilities (production models won't be born in the same place, we presume). Just a warning, guys: if this ends up happening as an EDGE-only device, we're going to lose it.

Clearly terrified at the process of losing four solid months of its 3G license's duration (which still runs for another 13 years, by the way), the UK's Office of Communications has now confirmed that O2 has stood up, acted like a carrier for once in its life, and taken responsibility for its wrongdoing. Obligations tied to the sale of the UK's 3G licenses back in 2000 stipulated that all buyers must reach 80 percent population coverage by December 31, 2007; Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, and 3 all managed to do that, but O2 was caught with its pants down at 75.69 percent. Ofcom showed leniency and extended O2's deadline out to June of this year, which was just enough for the carrier to get its act together and bring its coverage over the minimum. Meanwhile, US 3G coverage is an embarrassing shadow of the impressive numbers that even the slacker carriers there have managed to put up, so don't feel too bad for yourself, O2, we still love ya.

[Via Coolsmartphone]

One device conspicuously missing from Nokia's MWC and CTIA lineups this year has been the E71, the rumored successor to the E61i -- and for QWERTY S60 nerds, the next great hope. No worries, though; if the current rumor pans out, we won't have to wait for another major trade show for this thing to break cover. Dutch site Mobile Phone Helpdesk is claiming that "all arrows point" to an official launch on May 8 -- as in frickin' tomorrow. The site points out that alleged official specs have started appearing on retail sites, suggesting that Nokia's really starting to let its guard down as the ship date draws near. What are those specs, exactly? We can expect HSDPA, naturally, in addition to WiFi, a 3 megapixel cam, and an FM radio all bundled into a package that's supposedly just 10mm thick. Businessmen, businesswomen, we suggest you get your credit cards at the ready just in case this thing's suddenly available in a few hours.

[Via Unwired View]

Nokia fans, S60 fans, Symbian fans of all types, your attention, please! Allow us to set your hearts a-flutter with a few pictures of Nokia's latest two all-business smartphones, the rumored E66 and E71. Both models are pictured here out and about, doing what they do best -- a promising indication that we might be due for an official announcement in the not-too-distant future. We're told that both have 3.2 megapixel cameras (as expected), 128MB of memory, and as we've suspected from the few photos we've seen before, they're "sleek and sexy" in the flesh. Nokia's manufacturing processes appear to be continuing to improve, too, because we're told that the E66 feels "rugged and solid" despite the slide mechanism -- a sore spot with many an N95 owner. Whenever you want to get official with these, Nokia, that would be just fine with us, thanks!

derStandard, the same publication that announced that the iPhone would be sailing into Austria via T-Mobile is now reporting that the same carrier will be testing the 3G iPhone in the aforesaid country. During a press conference in Vienna, T-Mo Austria reportedly affirmed that a UMTS version of Apple's handset would "soon be available," and that Austria would be the "testing ground" for the new mobile -- not to mention "among the first countries in the world with the UMTS iPhone." Furthermore, bigwigs stated that "more flexible" offers would be made available, but details beyond that were scant.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

We had a little thumb-print orgy with the new HTC Touch Diamond immediately following its launch. Light and small, the Touch Diamond comes off as a unit with promise. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait a while to get our hands on this via a US carrier, but Orange users in the UK will no doubt be pretty happy with this new handset, the first of its kind to use Windows Mobile 6.1.

Check out the gallery below, complete with comments and interface walk-through. A couple vids after the break, too!

We've got some hands-on shots and impressions with the newly announced HTC Touch Diamond that we'll be sharing with you shortly, but here are some official press shots to whet your appetite. Tell it to us one more time, HTC. VGA? You really do love us.

If ever there were an LG Shine to live up to its lofty name, this would definitely be it. We'd like to introduce you to the Iron Man phone -- presented here by our boy Robert Downey, Jr. -- based on the Shine slider as sold by AT&T. Unlike the garden-variety Shine, the Iron Man edition trades up to a deep red case with gold plated highlights and a solid 18K gold battery cover to commemorate the launch of the film in style. That's plenty enough element 79 to give this thing some serious heft. We're not bragging, though -- we want you to have it.

The phone is valued at a princely $1,500; twenty are being given away by LG directly -- we've got the twenty first. How do you pry it out of our hands? Easy: we want to see just how nasty, disgusting, and close to complete breakdown your current face candy is. Send us a pic and tell us a little bit about your poor, dilapidated phone and the long journey it's taken to its current state of disrepair. We'll pick the saddest entry and let you retire that terrible thing for something just a little flashier.

One word of advice though: don't bother breaking your phone or taking a photo of your dad's Dynatac or something, that's not what we're looking for.

Check out the gallery to see shots of the very Iron Man phone that could be yours, and don't forget to enter. Good luck!

The rules (yeah, there are always rules)

• Send us your original photo. If we find your picture elsewhere on the internet, you will so be disqualified. Don't test us here, we've seen every picture of every phone. Ever.
• Email submissions to contests [at] engadget [dawt] com with the subject "I am Iron Man!" And for the love of our inbox, please keep your images 1MB or under, ok?
  
• You may only enter this contest once. If you enter this contest more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc.
• Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
  
• Entries must be in by 11:59PM EDT, Sunday, May 18th. After that, give us some time to sort through the entries and pick out the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it).

We've learned that Pantech and AT&T are apparently hard at work on the successor to the Duo C810 smartphone, a Windows Mobile 6 Standard device whose claim to fame is its dual slide mechanism in the same vein as the Pantech-sourced Helio Ocean. The Duo 2 -- model number C820, naturally -- is said to feature a rounded black case that recalls the look of Motorola's old MPx200 and clocks in with dimensions very close to those of the HTC Vox. We're also told that the dual slide feel is "excellent" with well-illuminated buttons on both the numeric and QWERTY pads; the QWERTY side is apparently the easier to use of the two, with the numeric side being just a bit difficult to navigate by feel alone. Up front, the 2.4-inch screen is QVGA (who'd have thought?). Along the four edges you'll find a Pantech proprietary charge / sync connector and a microSD slot protected by a hard plastic cover.

It doesn't sound a heck of a lot different than the phone it replaces so far, but here's where it gets a little interesting: the C820 moves up from a 1.3 to a 2 megapixel camera and packs Windows Mobile 6.1, which apparently is already pretty well customized for the carrier thanks to the inclusion of apps like MobiTV and AT&T Music. Follow the break for software, memory, and processor details; since we might be waiting a while for a release, you may as well get all the info you can in the meanwhile, eh?

Wait, Taiwan? i-mode? Yep, turns out that Far EasTone Telecommunications licenses NTT DoCoMo's well-known mobile internet brand for use in Taiwan, and they've partnered with Nokia to deliver the service on a customized version of the 6124 classic candybar -- the first Nokia ever to offer it. Of course, no i-mode handset is complete without blazing data speeds, and sure enough, the 6124 classic delivers with support for HSDPA in addition to a 2 megapixel cam, QVGA display, and S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. Yep, that's right, not only is Nokia tying up with i-mode, they're doing so on an honest-to-goodness smartphone. Kudos!

[Via IntoMobile]

We know HTC's got a big announcement coming this Tuesday, and while we can't say for sure it's going to the Touch Diamond, if today's leaked images and specs are at all accurate we think they might have something big on their hands. Check it out:

• 2.8-inch VGA display
• WinMo 6.1 Pro
• WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0
• eGPS, FM tuner
• Quad-band HSDPA 7.2
• 4GB internal flash, microSD slot
• 528MHz CPU
• 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus
• 10.7mm (0.47-inches) thick
• Supposedly also features an orientation sensor / accelerometer
  

Whether it's got a QWERTY keyboard could still be up for grabs, especially since that configuration might belong to the CDMA-based Raphael. Still, the it makes sense HTC wouldn't want the XPERIA X1 they made for Sony Ericsson to be their best engineered device on the market for long. We'll be watching this one closely.

[Thanks, Kevin]

T-Mobile's 3G network started going live today, and it looks like that early word from a company memo may not hold true for all users. Some markets may in fact have a silent soft-launch of faster data rates, we've heard from several tipsters who've said that they're already getting faster data service, and now the company itself getting the word out that it's launching data as well. But company peeps were indeed instructed to make sure customers don't count on that faster data being present; bottom line is you may have it, you may not (but if you take T-Mobile at its word, you should). NYC is the first market to light up, but others should come online soon -- anyone trying it out? How's it going? Hit us up in comments and let us know!