Following a new round of partnership announcements back in February, LiMo Foundation today added 8 new members, bringing the grand total to 40 -- and perhaps most notably, Verizon Wireless becomes the first American carrier to team up with the group and the Foundation's final board member (in other words, they seem to be taking this initiative pretty seriously). Other new players include South Korea's SK Telecom, France's SFR, Sagem, chipmaker Infineon, and Mozilla, suggesting that there'll be plenty of mobile Firefox support for LiMo's nascent platform. LiMo represents the largest Linux-based threat to Android's plans for world domination, having announced its initiative some time before Google while collecting a veritable who's-who of world players from NTT DoCoMo to manufacturers like LG and Motorola -- and with the depth of Verizon's commitment to this, evident by its nabbing of an actual board seat, we wouldn't be surprised to see LiMo-based products actually go beyond its Any Apps, Any Device initiative and get real on the carrier's official lineup.

Squint a little, and you might think this is a two or three hundred dollar handset. Then you unsquint, see the Sagem logo, and say, "ahh, nevermind." No offense to Sagem, either; we think they make some decent looking phones -- not that we'd really know how they work here in the US -- but let's be honest, their specialty lies on the low end of the spectrum. The my220x candybar was released a few weeks back across the pond and appears to be making quite a splash on account of its tastefully applied gold accents and exceptionally low price. It's being sold for £14.99 (about $30) or less in retail outlets -- an aggressive price, yes, but without even a VGA camera to its name, just be forewarned that the gold trim is the fanciest feature of this simple candybar.

[Via Slashphone and Mobilewhack]

When a manufacturer points out that a particular model is "cheap to replace if lost," well... needless to say, expectations should be kept to a minimum. Indeed, the meager "my300C" clamshell from Sagem doesn't bring particularly much to the table -- VGA cam, 3MB of onboard memory, and a display-less exterior -- but it does deliver on the "cheap to replace if lost" promise, coming in at just £39.99 (about $82) on Vodafone's pay-as-you-go service. Get it now in black, white, or pink.

[Via Mobilewhack]

While the unlicensed version of Porsche's mobile handset still holds a special place in our hearts, it looks like the Porsche Design Mobile Group finally took it upon themselves to join the growing fray and introduce its own co-branded device. The group has already slapped the luxurious logo on a sat nav device as well as a portable XM radio, but Stephane Bret (the group's director) was caught showing off a new mobile in Essen. Unfortunately, details on the phone are all but nil, but we do know that the P'9521 was unveiled at the Red Dot Design Museum and will rock a squarish flip-phone design, integrated camera, and multimedia player. No word just yet on when (or if, actually) this sure-to-be-overpriced handset will hit store shelves, but we can't help but notice that a few formidable opponents are quite a few laps ahead at this point. Click on through for a few more shots.

Gone are the days when going with a prepaid account meant sacrificing style or functionality in your choice of handset; actually, we think those days have been gone for a while now in Europe, but at any rate, add the Sagem my411x to the list. The fashion-friendly candybar features a mirrored front, media player with dedicated buttons, Bluetooth, and a VGA cam -- groundbreaking features by no means, but hey, when you consider that it goes for £49.99 (about $100) contract-free, it ain't bad. Look for it now on Orange in the UK.

The Sony Ericsson rumor mill has been churning things out at a wild rate in the last days and weeks, leading some (that some includes us) to speculate that a product launch (or two!) may be just around the corner. The latest fodder for our eyes to feast upon -- from left to right in the picture -- is the candybar codenamed "Nicole" and the slider called "Shinobu." The Shinobu is rumored to pack such niceties as HSDPA, 2.4 inch QVGA screen, 2 megapixel cam, and what appears to be a forward-facing camera into a svelte half-inch thick package. Nicole is touted to be the first handset under the Sony Ericsson / Sagem partnership and brings a 2 inch QCIF screen, 2 megapixel camera, and 3G (no word on flavor) also packed in a half-inch thin handset. Both pics smack of fan renders, so we will just have to cross our fingers and hope that Sony Ericsson spills the beans on these two in the near term.

[Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog, thanks Michael]

We know that the cellphone makin' game can be rough, Sony Ericsson; we really do. Sometimes you've just gotta take a load off. Heck, your fellow European in the Big Five, Nokia, washed its hands of much of its CDMA responsibilities through a deal with Korea's Pantech, so we can totally understand wanting to offload your low-end R&D and manufacturing duties to SAFRAN Group's Sagem. Of course, Sagem is a little closer to home -- France, to be exact -- than those Korean folks, so you should have a pretty easy go of it keeping your rebranded stuff in check. In fact, you're so uptight about it that you've decided to open a new office right in Sagem's hometown of Cergy, France, dedicated to the low-end segment. We look forward to seeing what y'all come up with -- let's just try to make them a little more believable than the "Nokia" 6315i, mkay?

In the quest to continue driving down the size of cellphone handsets these days, the quest to make the tiniest (and hopefully most usable) Bluetooth headset is not far behind. Remember when the Nextlink Bluespoon was claimed to be the world's smallest Bluetooth headset? Those days are long gone and Sagem has announced that it now has the world's smallest Bluetooth headset. We better call the Guiness Book of World Records (at least for today), as the Sagem G4 claims that it "could be" the world's smallest (nice cop out), at 35 x 18 x 12.5mm -- and weighing just 8 grams as well. Performance, you ask? Sagem claims 5 hours of talktime and 100 hours of standby, and charging time is only 1.5 hours to boot. Cost? 53 British pounds, or about $103 greenbacks in U.S. currency, but right now, there's only a teaser at Sagem's website -- and it's supposed to be available some time this week.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Sagem's more or less a non-starter in these parts, but the French concern does good business in Europe and kicks off '07 with four new pieces to satisfy the cheapskate in all of us. Starting from the left, the my501x has been available for a few months now but is inexplicably being trumpeted as a fresh model with Bluetooth and a 1.3 megapixel cam for £60 ($120). Next up, the rather eye-catching my202c keeps things simple, forgoing an external display and camera but sucking a mere £30 ($60) from wallets, purses, and carryalls. The my401c offers Bluetooth and 1.3 megapixels of shootin' power in the buyer's choice of black / silver or silver / pink for £50 ($100), and finally, the my215x does on the light and cheap, weighing in under 85 grams and running £40 ($80). Look for the whole range to be available now on European shelves.

[Via Shiny Shiny - my202c and my401c, my501x and my215x]

We're not really down with the surfer crowd around here, but there's apparently a market for a surfing-themed cellphone -- or at least that's what Oxbow would have us believe. The French purveyor of surf gear has teamed up with Sagem (bringer of a couple uninspiring clamshells to the European marketplace in recent memory) to offer the "My Oxbow by Sagem," a -- you guessed it -- Oxbow-themed phone for the surfer dude / dudette in all of us. Details are slim for the picking, but the squarish candybar is apparently based on the my400, so we don't expect any blockbuster features to be packed underneath its bright blue skin. If nothing brightens your day like a trip to the beach, look for the My Oxbow now on France's SFR network.

[Via Shiny Shiny]

Now that Motorola's back to its old industry-dominating self, it sounds like an acquisition or two might be in order. Ron Garriques, head of Moto's Mobile Devices division, apparently mentioned in an interview that the company has a "serious interest" in scooping up Sagem from current parent SAFRAN Group. As expected, the comment has put both SAFRAN and Motorola in damage-control mode, with Motorola France insisting that Garriques' comment has no bearing on the company's plans and SAFRAN noting that they're still exploring all their options for flipping Sagem, which has had a for-sale sign around its neck since September. If the sale were to materialize it probably wouldn't mean much this side of the Atlantic, but it'd give Motorola a significantly expanded presence in Europe where France-based Sagem does the lion's share of its business. More importantly, though, it'd mark the union of two of the more unusual marketing schemes in the industry: Sagem's "my"-everything and Motorola's MOTOBRNDs. Who wouldn't want a myMOTOKRZR?

So, this actually went down a couple days ago, and we've been sitting here trying to process all the information ever since. The idea of any carrier -- let alone a non-Japanese one -- announcing thirty-one handsets in one fell swoop simply boggles our mortal minds. We take it so seriously, in fact, that we liken it to the discovery of penicillin or man landing on the moon; if a US carrier were to launch 31 handsets at once, we wouldn't be surprised to see it on the front page of every newspaper in North America. Alas, this isn't Cingular or Verizon with the announcement -- it's Vodafone, so let's get down to business. First up, Nokia is bringing six phones to the party: the 6070, 6151, 6234, 6288, 7390, and the N73; all but the 6070 are 3G, and you get your choice of cams ranging from VGA all the way up to the N73's monster 3.2-megapixel shooter. LG will be contributing its KU800 (a Chocolate variant) and L600V, both with 3G data. Motorola rolls deep with four models, the MAXX, V1100 (an HSDPA-capable Vodafone exclusive), MOTOKRZR K1, and V3xx. Sagem's got the my600V and my800V -- both lower-end 3G devices -- and the super simple myC5-3. We're starting to get a little fatigued here, but let's keep going; Sharp has their 770SH and EDGE-only GX29 in store with 1.3-megapixel and VGA cams, respectively. Sony Ericsson brings their K310i, K610i, K800i Cyber-shot, V630i (another Voda exclusive, hence the "V," we're guessing), and W850i Walkman phones, though no mention of the P990. Samsung wins the title of "World's Most Phones Launched By A Single Manufacturer In This Particular Vodafone Announcement," dropping the X510V, X680V, Z400V, Z540V, Z560V, Z720V, ZV40, and ZV50. Last -- and possibly least -- the Vodafone 710 inaugurates Voda's self-branding initiative, bringing 3G and a 1.3-megapixel camera in (what should be) an inexpensive package. All told, six of the new phones will rock HSDPA, and a total of 24 support some manner of high-speed data. Now if you'll excuse us, we need some milk of magnesia and a nap, but we hope we've brightened the day of a Brit or two among our readership. [Warning: PDF link]

Sagem's got a fresh new handset exclusively for Vodafone customers (one of many they'll soon be seeing), recently announcing its my600V handset -- apparently the company's first 3G phone for the UK market. This one boasts a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth connectivity, a music player with support for MP3, AAC, and AAC+ files, 16MB of built-in memory, and a microSD slot to satisfy anyone with a heftier media appetite. Battery life is said to clock in at four hours of talk time and 400 hours standby. If any of that's enough to seal the deal for you, you'll be able to snag this phone for £70 ($130) later this month.