Sanyo handsets are like cats: you either love them or you just really, really loathe them with every fiber of your being. Sprint and Sanyo both seem to be pretty okay with that; clearly, not every phone in Sprint's lineup is going to be for everyone, and the Katana Eclipse is no different. Sanyo fanatic or not, though, our gripe list added up pretty quickly with this one, so would-be buyers might want to put it through a good workout in store before taking the plunge.

The phone's hinge design causes the upper half of the phone to rest behind the bottom half; that is, the intersection of the planes containing the two halves is not the center of the hinge (think MacBook, for example). We thought that felt a little weird against our face and made it more difficult to get a good seal between the earpiece and our ear. Also, the front of the phone -- arguably the most attractive of any Katana to date -- isn't the most user-friendly. The tiny external display was difficult to read even in a moderate amount of shade, and the music controls are nearly flush with the shell which makes actuating them trickier than it should be. Speaking of displays, the primary one is pretty small, leaving a huge gray bezel with no function whatsoever (don't be fooled by the white dots at the bottom, they serve no function other than to make you think that they're touch-sensitive soft buttons, which they're not).

It's not all doom and gloom, though. The dedicated speaker key is a nifty parlor trick, you've got a 1.3 megapixel cam in there, and it does stereo Bluetooth. Plus, it's a Sanyo, and we know that for a few of you out there, that's all that matters. For you guys, you'll be able to pick up the Katana Eclipse immediately for $99.99 with a new two-year contract.

Relax, take your shoes back off and put down your car keys -- the Katana Eclipse still isn't released, so there's no point in running down to your local Sprint kiosk just yet. We do, however, have a full range of photography that should temporarily keep would-be buyers' heads from exploding for a dearth of information about Sanyo's latest American clam. The phone looks like it might be the most attractive Katana to date, and Sanyo owners tend to be among the most fiercely loyal around, so we think this one should get some good play at the cash register. Check out the gallery, and keep the drool off your keyboard for once, will ya?

[Thanks, Opie33]

Well, there you have it: the very real-looking Katana Eclipse pictured in that leaked Sprint roadmap is, in fact, real. The upcoming clamshell flew right on through the FCC recently (filed under new parent Kyocera's name, no less) bearing the expected external music controls and an evolutionary design that's kinda sorta reminiscent of everything that makes the Katana series, the Katana series. We've got EV-DO in here, too, so if we had to guess, this will end up slotting in somewhere toward the bottom of Sprint's midrange when it goes on sale -- which may or may not be August 17 depending on the accuracy of said roadmap.

[Via Cell Phone Signal, thanks Marco]

Though the document doesn't exactly look magazine-quality, this is a case where we'd argue that it doesn't have to be to be real; it's clearly for internal use only, for one thing, and secondly, we don't know where else the picture of that new Sanyo Katana Eclipse would come from. The Eclipse is just one of several pretty nifty releases claimed to be lined up between now and September, with the Motorola VE20 Vegas and a pair of data cards joining it on August 17. September should bring the Motorola i365 and V950 Renegade, Samsung m220 and m320, and the HTC MP6950 -- which we assume to be either the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro -- clearly in desperate need of an actual name by the time it launches. Go-go gadget, product marketing team!

[Thanks, Owen]

From rumor to sale in about two months' time -- not bad. The Sanyo Katana LX is now available through Sprint, offering a worthy replacement to the aging Katana II at the same price point, $49.99 on contract after rebates. Fashion is the name of the game here, thanks to a trendy see-through front cover revealing an external display underneath and availability in three collect-'em-all colors: Liquid Graphite, Pacific Blue, and Elegant Pink. You're also going to get GPS, Bluetooth, and a VGA cam -- but one thing you aren't going to get is EV-DO, so steer clear if you have a need for speedy bits.

[Thanks, Chuck and Jorge]

So that's where the external display is! From the FCC documentation, we couldn't really make out what was up with Sanyo's Katana LX -- a phone that's allegedly destined to replace the lowly Katana II -- but it turns out that the display is hidden under a semi-translucent casing. This is a trick we've seen employed by various manufacturers in the past, often with lovely results, and it's looking pretty solid this time around, too. With any luck we'll see this one in the flesh next month. Follow the break for another glamor shot, if you're so inclined.

That rumored Katana II replacement, the creatively-named Katana LX, is looking more real than ever now that the FCC's labs have put it through the ringer. If the remainder of the rumor ends up checking out, the LX ended up passing the federal checkpoint just in the nick of time en route to an April launch. One thing that concerns us just a tad is that we're having a hard time finding an external display or a camera, though we imagine it's possible that one or both are crammed into that black area near the hinge; if not, this bad boy's going to make a pretty miserable Katana II successor since the older model carried both features. Needless to say, EV-DO isn't in the cards either way.

Word on the street is that customers might be getting their first crack at Sprint's QChat wares rather soon -- April 16, to be exact. The news comes from phoneArena, which reports that the LG LX400 (pictured) will be launching alongside Sanyo's PRO-200 and PRO-700 on that fateful day, presumably along with the Direct Connect tech (and iDEN heir apparent) itself. The LG is rumored to be coming in at an SRP of $279.99, while the two Sanyos check in at $249.99 and $269.99, respectively. Also slated for April launches are the BlackBerry Curve 8330 in "titanium" along with Sanyo's Katana LX, a replacement for the Katana II that'll presumably keep its slim profile but carry over the forgettable VGA cam.

Sprint has yet to make any official mention of this phone's existence, but we've seen just about enough evidence to convince ourselves that the Katana DLX is the real deal. Positioned as a slightly higher-end rendition of the Katana II, the DLX mercifully adds the EV-DO data that both the II and the original Katana are sorely lacking. How do we know? Well, there's the FCC filing of course, but Sanyo has now seemingly admitted that the Katana DLX is the real deal and promises a near-term launch (think July) on Sprint. Other features include a microSD slot, 1.3 megapixel camera, and Bluetooth with A2DP, making this one a solid midrange offering if flips (or Sanyos) are your thing. Check it in "Platinum Ice," "Pink Satin," and "Champagne" -- pictured in that order -- when it hits shelves.

Update: It's on Sprint's site, all official-like. $129.99 on contract after rebates.

Looks like Sprint has dropped the drapes on Sanyo's Katana II handset, as it is showing on Sprint's website as of now. The SCP-6650 Katana II makes a few decent strides over the EV-DO-less original Katana from last year, including a refined design and a more RAZR-esque profile, but with the Katana II sportin' a positively ancient VGA digicam and lacking EV-DO data of any kind, this apparently-minor refresh to the Katana design may not win many converts from the original or otherwise. But hey, at under $100 with a new two-year contract, we can't complain too much -- although $50 seems like a more appropriate price right off the bat.

[Via Phone News]

Any excitement we would've had for the coming of the Katana's replacement has been tempered by a totally bogus lack of EV-DO -- but as a thin, inexpensive flip, it looks like the Katana II should be able to hold its own against the competition. This here is the first decent picture we've seen of the device -- or devices, seeing how it'll apparently be available in black, pink, and silver -- showing a reasonably attractive shell with the same VGA cam as its predecessor. The display's apparently up a fifth of an inch to 2 inches in total, but there ain't much else to talk about without upgrading to the slightly higher-end Katana DLX. Look for the Katana II to hit next month for a shade under $50 on contract.

So it turns out Sprint's Sanyo Katana is going to be met by no fewer than two successors. Besides the previously-seen Katana II, the FCC's been hooked up with the Katana DLX, a reasonably attractive (from what little we can tell) flip that features EV-DO, Bluetooth, microSD expansion, camera, and a PC modem mode. Of course, the FCC likes to be as coy as possible with details, so we've got nothin' else on this one for the time being -- but if it launches around the same time as the Katana II, we should see it in the next few months.

[Via Phone Scoop]

The Katana II has been a rumored device on Sprint for quite some time, but what we haven't been able to find out is whether it makes good on the original Katana's critical failure to include 3G. The device was originally billed as a low-cost alternative to the RAZR, but let's be honest: the RAZR ain't the king of the hill anymore, and EV-DO is finally a commodity feature in even entry-level CDMA handsets. Sadly, the Katana II's FCC filing doesn't shed any light on the sitch -- all we know is that it's a CDMA handset with Bluetooth -- but we do get a handful of sketches in the ID label documentation (think of it as a sort of color-by-number Katana II, minus the numbers). If the original rumors hold true, expect the phone to hit as soon as June.

Authenticity is tough to verify here, but what we've heard from an inside source here regarding Sprint Nextel's launch estimates for the first half of the new year -- including some devices that have already hit the streets -- seems totally plausible, if not probable. Samsung's been tapped to provide three: the m300 "Vivace," m510 "Fantasy" (apparently a minor update to the m500), and -- most interestingly -- the m620 "Flipper," which we've now heard from multiple sources will be a CDMA version of the nifty F300 Ultra Music Edition, scheduled to launch with Sprint on April 1. Sanyo brings a total of five to the party, two of which have already launched: the 3200, 7000, 7050, Katana II (hopefully sporting EV-DO this time), and M1. Sierra Wireless and Novatel will team up to bring three more data devices to market, the 595U, 597E, and Express (the XV620, we're guessing?). Moto's on the hook for three devices, the Q (wow, we haven't heard it called "Franklin" in ages) and a pair of iDEN / CDMA hybrids, the ic502 and ic902. Rounding out the offerings will be the 6800 -- an HTC Titan variant -- and the previously-unmentioned Palm Sherlock (a CDMA version of the 680 or 750, we'd wager). Not a bad lineup considering this all theoretically goes down in the first six months of the year, eh?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Following up its pink variation on the Sanyo 3100 handset, Qwest is now also offering a slightly more subdued "Cherry Blossom Pink" version of Sanyo's slim Katana handset, just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As with the 3100, 10% of the sales from the phone (up to $100,000) will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which is focused on research and community outreach programs. The phone itself is otherwise the same old Katana handset, weighing a slight 3.4 ounces and packing a 2.2-inch QVGA display, VGA camera, and Bluetooth, but unfortunately lacking EV-DO support. Going pink will cost you the same as the Katana's less colorful brethren, setting you back an even $100 (with a Qwest contract, of course).

[Via Techie Diva]