We could tell by looking that RIM wouldn't think of charging too many hundies for its still unannounced BlackBerry KickStart, but $49.99? CrackBerry has it that said flip phone will be selling at T-Mobile for a penny under $50 on a two-year contract, which certainly seems smart given the competition. 'Course, we've nothing to substantiate this with just yet, but take one more look at that chubby side and tell us this thing deserves a triple digit price tag. That's right, you can't.

Don't be ashamed, you're out to get every last morsel of Kickstart goodness before RIM's first flip phone ever hits the market. On the docket today is a half dozen slides detailing the Flip Experience, essentially spilling the painfully mundane minutiae of how the handset will function while talking, receiving a text message, showing alerts and playing music. Nothing too mesmerizing or unexpected, but the Matt Damon hateration is totally out of left field.

Just days after Telus picked up the attractive LG Venus, the carrier has officially started offering up the Motorola Mike i877. The half-rugged, half-sleek looking flip phone was designed by Pininfarina and features integrated Bluetooth, a multimedia player (MP3, AAC, WMA), microSD expansion slot, miniUSB port, 1.3-megapixel camera, VibraCall, a digital voice recorder and the obligatory push-to-talk support. If it floats your boat, you can snag it now sans contract for $349.99, or anywhere between $149.99 to $299.99 if you're cool with signing the dotted line for varying lengths of time.

[Via MobileInCanada]

Virgin Mobile is officially dipping its toes into smartphone water with its latest offering, the Kyocera Wild Card. Of course, how deep into that particular pool both companies are going is a question for the ages. The Wild Card isn't exactly the most robust phone you'll ever get your hands on, though the flip-phone does offer a QWERTY keypad, dual screens, a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth integration, and a WAP browser. The hitch is that you'll have to view that browser on a 128 x 160 screen, which is painfully, embarrassingly small -- though they do throw in Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man to keep you distracted. Hey, for a price point of $99, you could do way, way worse. The phone is available now from your friendly neighborhood Virgin Mobile dealer.

If you've been patiently awaiting details about, well, a whole slew of handsets, chances are that a recent Sprint event held the answers to a-many of those very questions. First up was the Palm Centro (also coined Gandolf and Treo 800), which you've already seen plenty of earlier today. Moving on, the Sprint Touch (read: CDMA) was said to be rockin' a potent 400MHz CPU, and it also touted EV-DO, 128MB of RAM, a two-megapixel camera, built-in GPS "to be activated in a Rev A upgrade," and a likely launch date in November. Furthermore, an EV-DO BlackBerry Pearl was on display along with a "petite candybar" from Sanyo, the sliding LG Rumor, and the Sprint Airave home cell site (once known as the Samsung Ubicell). We know you're craving the dirt on all of the aforementioned gizmos, so be sure and hit the read link for the full skinny.

If you've been keeping a keen eye out on the FCC findings of late, you wouldn't find it surprising at all that two of Samsung's latest are officially headed to the US of A. Turns out that the Samsung SGH-T729 and SGH-T419 are both slated to make their US debut on T-Mobile, and while there's not a whole lot here for the high-end customer, the lower-end crowd should certainly appreciate what they're packin'. The T729 slider dons a somewhat stylish exterior, 1.3-megapixel camera, 220 x 176 resolution display, sports the SureType keyboard, and reportedly includes BlackBerry Connect as well. The T419 bargain phone doesn't do much outside of accepting and dialing calls, but does manage to include a 160 x 128 resolution display internally, a simple greyscale LCD on the exterior, a paltry VGA camera, and a hint of the modern world with the inclusion of Bluetooth. No word just yet on pricing nor availability, but at least you'll know where to look.

Taiwan's OKWAP is sitting on a new Windows Mobile smartphone that looks eerily reminiscent of many newer Sony Ericsson designs. It's not really a first for OKWAP -- a Windows Mobile Smartphone, that is -- but this baby sports a slick "virtual" scroll wheel, ala iPod. Sporting a very clean and almost sterile white design, we were first perplexed by the absence of a joystick or d-pad of some kind, but alas, OKWAP has designed the whole keypad to be a touch-sensitive virtual navigation array. The SD slot on the top of the unit (great move OKWAP) takes old school full SD cards and the single connector -- miniUSB -- rounds out the bottom. Price in Taiwan? $450US for that beauty, once you find it.

[via Slashphone]

Is anyone reading this truly interested in a phone that has a karaoke feature? Oh right, so you at the back, yeah you to the left of that dude wearing the "I'm with stupid" t-shirt... you'd relish a feature designed to let you embarrass yourself in public? Alright, so we may not think much of this particular aspect of the recently announced Asus Z801 flip-phone: fortunately, the rest of its specifications go some way towards making up for this silliness. At the core of the tri-band Z801's features is its 2-megapixel camera and large-ish QVGA display plus an MP3 player and A2DP-enabled Bluetooth. Dig a little deeper and you'll find some software that enables voice dialing, a dictaphone function, and support for QR Code -- a system similar to barcode used commonly in Japan for sending information like URLs and contact details. If you let your eyes wander away from the screen you'll no doubt notice the phone's "Sapphire Quartz" mirrored finish, the black and white checkered keypad design, and a standard external LCD for caller ID or an analog clock face. For now the Z801 looks to remain exclusive to Taiwan, although we've got our fingers crossed it'll get a decent export plan, even if only so we can see first hand how popular that mobile-karaoke feature really is.

We first spotted Samsung's slim m610 clamshell way back in August, but it looks like the phone's now finally available for purchase from Sprint, apparently still able to claim the title of "thinnest clamshell wireless phone in the United States." Apart from a new black paint job, the phone's specs remain the same as before, with a 2.0 megapixel camera, QVGA internal display, OLED external display, Bluetooth, and a microSD slot for expansion (a 64MB card is included); it'll also let you take advantage of Sprint TV and other Sprint PCS Power Vision multimedia services. Measurements come in at 3.98 x 2.05 x 0.47-inches with the phone weighing in at a mere 3.28 ounces. Getting it no strings attached will run you $329.99, but if you're willing to go through the usual contract signings and instant rebates, Sprint will let you have one for just $180.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

We hope you're not preparing for this to be a specced out monster of a cellphone, but for those longing for a Chocolate flip phone that may be a little (ok, a lot) too reminiscent of the KRZR, look no further than the Black Sapphire MG810 (aka VX8600, and U830). It'll apparently have a 1.3 megapixel camera, 176 x 220 internal display (and 96x 96 external), media player that supports MP3 and AAC, Bluetooth, FM radio, 128MB of flash memory, and GRPS. Still, she's ah so beautiful. According to our Brazilian pal who sent this in, they snuck it right out underneath our ever lovin' noses and apparently put it on sale in South America for 999 Brazil Reais (or about $465 US). Steep, for a phone that doesn't appear to have EDGE or expandable media, but you're not paying for features here, remember?

[Thanks, Gustavo]

Somebody out there really loves us. An anonymous tipster just sent in a handful of pics of Motorola's impending followup to the RAZR -- formerly dubbed the Canary, and now known by the nearly-unpronounceable series of letters KRZR -- running on Verizon's CDMA network. Nothing here that we haven't seen before, but if you wanted a sneak preview of what this phone will look like in your hand as you watch all that wonderful V Cast swag, now you have a pretty good idea. Click on for a few more shots of the handset that Moto is hoping another 50 million people will decide they just gotta have...

So Samsung's showing off a super-slim new flip phone at CommunicAsia 2006 in Singapore called the SGH-D830, but other than its RAZR-killing 9.9-millimeter thickness, they're declining to reveal any of the details that we so desperately need to know. Does it play music? We can't say. Is it i-mode compatible? Maybe, we see an "i" on there. How many megapixels is the camera? Again, you'll find no answers here. Shame, shame on you Samsung, for teasing us with a model so thin and yet so mysterious.

It looks like Pantech and Nokia have been hanging out again, but this time Nokia will be the one dropping the rebranded handset, an EV-DO-sporting model for Verizon known as the 6315i (and formerly known as the PN-E330). Phone Scoop discovered this recent approval while enjoying the FCC website, and reports back that it features a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD slot, and Bluetooth, along with dedicated external music controls. We'll let you know when we find out a release date and some pricing info for this fairly feature-filled flip phone.

[Via Phone Scoop]

What do we know about Pantech & Curitel's new SKY IM U-MU110 clamshell (besides the fact that it has a tongue-twister of a model number)? Not much, unfortunately, as AVING is heavy on the images but light on the deets, so all that we can discern about this model -- two megapixel camera, 1GB of memory, EV-DO, external music controls -- comes from pics of the so-called "Jukebox" phone. Besides snapping photos and rocking tunes, pictures seem to indicate that the IM U-MU110 also makes voice calls. No word on such trifles as pricing or release dates/locations, but keep reading for another hot pic...

[Via MobileMag]