Pantech has an awesome habit of delivering a handful of fairly anonymous devices to AT&T -- C810 WinMo dual slider notably excepted -- and judging from what little we can gather in the test reports, we've got another one on the way. AT&T-bound models from the Korean outfit start with "C" (an homage to Cingular, no doubt) and this one fits the bill with GSM / EDGE on the 850 and 1900MHz bands. Other than that, though, your guess is as good as ours -- it seems pretty wide, though. A QWERTY piece, perhaps?

Nice phone, but we have to admit, we're not blown away here. Pantech's diving headlong into the fashionable touch phone market with the SKY IM-R300 for its domestic market, featuring a DMB tuner, microSD slot, 260MB of internal storage, HSDPA, a 2.6-inch WQVGA display, and a relatively puny 2 megapixel camera. Oh, and what's with that gargantuan stylus there? Actually, how does that monster even fit inside the phone? We're guessing finger control doesn't play a particularly big role on this one, though the need for character recognition might make switching between the stylus and a fingertip too much trouble to bother anyway.

Or could it? As the colorful name suggests, the hallmark of Pantech's new IM-U300K flip for its domestic market is a front cover chock full of 49 LEDs that form images and messages depending on what's going on -- text messages, calls, alarms and the like. PC-based software allows users to make their own designs, which can later be exchanged between phones via infrared (totally rad right up until that last bit, which seems straight outta 2002). Other features of the phone include DMB reception, a document viewer, and global roaming, so if you see a nightmarishly bright light emanating from the pocket of an individual in your neck of the woods, you now know why.

[Via Unwired View]

In Japan, carriers tend to release new models in giant, blockbuster batches -- seasonal "collections" that leave the rest of the world green with envy. KDDI au is no exception, having just announced its predictably spectacular Summer 2008 lineup with entrants from Kyocera, Sony Ericsson, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba, Casio, and Korea's Pantech. Here's the rundown:

• Hitachi Wooo W62H. KDDI is emphasizing this one's video and 3D gaming capabilities, both of which are assisted by the presence of a 2-way hinge for flipping out the screen in a landscape orientation. Comes in blue, silver, and black.
• Sharp W62SH. The FM transmitter's kinda cool, and the three-inch WVGA screen should be perfect for watching Spiderman 2, which comes bundled with the phone. Purple, white, and gold are the color choices.
• Sanyo W63SA. Global CDMA roaming and an integrated English-Japanese dictionary makes this one a solid choice for world travelers. Get this one in red, silver, or black.
• Toshiba Sportio. As the name implies, this one's all about burnin' those calories with an integrated calorie counter. The candybar form factor is a refreshing change of pace in the lineup, but too bad about that QVGA display! Five colors to choose from here: orange, black, white, green, and red.
• Casio G'zOne W62CA. Like its counterparts on Verizon, the W62CA is designed to take a beating without falling apart. It's impact resistant and waterproof, features a compass, thermometer, and GPS, and naturally, one-seg TV. Get it in green, black, or white.
• Sanyo W64SA. This fashionable flip has some crazy light effects to go along with its crazy selection of colors, but other than that, it seems pretty pedestrian. If you can call a 2.8-inch WVGA display "pedestrian." It's available in pink, white, yellow, and black.
• Sony Ericsson Full Change re. The WQVGA display is one metric ton of weak sauce, but as the "Full Change" name suggests, five individual pieces can be removed from the front, back, and top of the phone to create a totally customized handset. Shell choices include white, pink, green, orange, and silver.
• Toshiba W62T. Seriously, what's up with all this WQVGA garbage? The W62T appears destined for the midrange, though the 3.2 megapixel camera ain't bad. Colors for this one are gold, pink, and black.
• Kyocera W64K. Possibly leading up the bottom end of the collection, the W64K rocks a WQVGA display and a weak 2 megapixel cam. We see "basic capabilities" mentioned a couple times in the translated description for it, so that says pretty much all we need to know. Pink and gold are the only color options here.
• Kyocera W62K. Whoa, and we thought the W64K was low end! 1.3 megapixel cam, QVGA (yeah, that's right, QVGA, not WQVGA) display. 'Nuff said. Beige, blue, and black are the choices here.
• Kyocera W63K. The W63K candybar is just 10.8mm thick, but we're still not sure that we can forgive it for a meager 1.3 megapixel camera. Kyocera's seriously dragging here, in case you haven't noticed the trend. Black, burgundy, and beige.
• Pantech W62PT. The only phone in the lineup sourced from a non-Japanese manufacturer, the Pantech's nothing to get too excited about with a QVGA display, but the presence of quick dial buttons directly below the screen indicates that this one's designed for folks that are looking for a simple, easy-to-use phone that's just enough to make voice calls -- and ironically, it's still better than a good percentage of the phones you'll find elsewhere in the world. It'll come in silver, gold, and pink.

Not a bad showing, especially considering that KDDI au stands out as Japan's major CDMA carrier in a country dominated by FOMA. Get 'em while they're hot, folks -- you know it's just a few months before the next collection debuts!

Rumors of a successor to Pantech's Duo for AT&T just got a little more believable this week thanks to a new FCC filing for a device matching the model number we'd been told to look out for. The C820's posterior here certainly looks the part of a dual slider smartphone, and the inclusion of WCDMA 850 / 1900 pretty much locks up AT&T as the destination -- so the only question left is whether it's the 2 megapixel Windows Mobile 6.1 baddie we're hoping for, or just some random milquetoast messenger for the low end. The smart money still says it's the former, but Murphy and his stupid law just love to prove us wrong in these sorts of situations.

Worried that it's been a while since Helio's released anything? Relax, it's all good! We've been privy to some key details on the MVNO's next-gen Ocean -- the device known simply as OZ2 thus far by its FCC identification -- and things are definitely looking up for this monster to set the bar among QWERTY dumbphones whenever Helio gets around to releasing it. Besides the little box of visual stimulation there that we managed to pick up (sorry, that'll have to do for the time being), we've learned that the following features are being thrown around in Helio's testing; none are guaranteed for the final product, apparently, but most of them sound totally reasonable:

• 3 megapixel camera
• Dual slider, just like the original
• microSDHC support
• 1GB internal storage
• In-browser Flash support
• 30fps video recording
• Touch-sensitive directional pad
• PC sync capability

We don't have any info on pricing or release here, but you know we'll be hustling 'em hard to spill the beans. In the meantime, try not to drop that Ocean -- it's got to last just a little bit longer.

It's a little late -- if you can call falling behind an unofficial, rumored timeline "late" -- but the Pantech Breeze has finally hit up AT&T's website for sale to the masses. Though the feature set leaves it a bit shy of the HTC phone of the same name, your hard-earned $49.99 will still buy you a pretty attractive clam with quadband EDGE, a VGA camera, Bluetooth, and the large buttons, text, and speed dials directly below the display that all tend to be hallmarks of phones for a... ahem, more mature audience. No bother; we really like the way this one looks, and the price won't break the bank.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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?

History tells us that Pantech likes to slap a "C" prefix on its models destined for AT&T (harking back to the Cingular days, no doubt), and so naturally our eyes widened just a bit when we saw just such a device fly through the FCC this week. This particular device is dubbed the C610, which we guesstimate puts it at about 200 less than the C810; enough of a deduction to take it out of the smartphone realm? Hard to say. We can tell from the documentation here that it's a 3G device, and a couple shots of the phone in the SAR reports taken from far, far away (blown up here for your viewing enjoyment) show a clamshell that's probably targeting a fashion-conscious crowd since it's done up in red. We wish we could say "we'll know soon enough," but since we're still waiting for the SMT5700 that hit the FCC over a year ago, we'll keep our mouths shut.

"Luxurious yet simple design" is the name of the game for SKY's latest bit of mobile splendor, curiously named "Duke" of all things. For many of us, "Duke" conjures up images of rough-and-tumble sheriffs in the Wild West or gargantuan Xbox controllers, but one thing it doesn't necessarily bring to mind is "luxurious yet simple." No bother, we suppose it's the hardware that matters, so let's get to it: 2.4 inch QVGA display, 1.3 megapixel camera, document viewer, media player, Bluetooth, and built-in subway maps (Korean subways, that is) all grace the rather plainly styled slider. Look for it on your favorite Seoul retailer's shelf for something in the range of 400,000 won (about $404).

[Via Unwired View]

This dual-band CDMA handset with EV-DO just popped up on our FCC radar this morning with the model designation "ELVIS," and while we have no idea what it is, where it's going, or when, we have to admit -- we can kinda see the resemblance between this and The King in his later years. If you catch our drift.

Update: Turns out it's the UTStarcom TXT8010, which has a QWERTY keyboard; no wonder it's so wide. Thanks, everyone!

We've already mentioned that the LG Vu is looking solid for a late March release after being held up (or so they say, anyway) to work through a few MediaFLO issues; we've now received independent confirmation that it's true -- assuming no more issues arise, of course -- but that's not all. No, far from it, in fact. The Sony Ericsson Z750 is apparently inbound for a release within two weeks, and along with the rugged Motorola W760 "Hurricane" (pictured), that should close out AT&T's March docket.

Moving on to April and beyond, the Pantech "Breeze" is expected some time next month, but don't get too excited -- it's an entry level flip that should move out the door free on contract. The Motorola Z9 slider should lackadaisically stroll into stores in late April, and finally, we've heard that the Nokia N95 has been approved by the carrier's powers that be (!!!) and should be available in the second quarter; no word on whether it's the standard N95 or the N95 8GB, though. How about an N96 with MediaFLO while you're at it, guys?

[Thanks, Kal]

Update: We've just heard from another tipster that the N95 in question is the original for the North American market, the N95-3. It apparently just started going through the arduous approval process last week, a testing marathon that takes roughly 400 hours -- four to six months -- to complete. By then, we'll all have 4G radios embedded directly within our brains and be living in terraformed colonies on Mars, but it was a nice thought on AT&T's part nonetheless.

Pantech's double-sliding Duo seems set to roll out with AT&T in a refreshed red housing color. Seriously, what's not to like here if you're hunting for some inexpensive Windows Mobile, QWERTY keyboard and keypad, HSDPA / EDGE, fun? Not much, and for $99 bucks on contract, AT&T has even seen fit to match the color with next week's Valentine day launch window. Who thought Blue could be so romantic?

[Via IntoMobile]

Yes, friends, the time has come once again for Japan's carriers to upheave their still-fresh lineups and replace them with even fresher ones. Here we take a look at KDDI au's just-announced Spring '08 collection, including a model with an e-ink display and another with a 3 inch OLED. Wowza! Note that not all of these handsets are new -- some are carryovers from the carrier's Winter '07 collection, so we won't be covering those here. Read on.

In its domestic Korean market, the IM-S300 slider from Pantech's SKY division is apparently being touted as the "Romantic Wave," and we guess we're hard pressed to disagree. The wavy buttons front and center look really cool -- usability aside, of course -- though the 1.3 megapixel cam leads us to believe that physical design is where the high-endedness ends on this one. If you happen to be around Seoul, grab it for something in the range of 400,000 won (about $430) in black or white (with pink accents, no less).

[Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]