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.

Oh hell yes, did we call it or did we call it? That mystery device has a keyboard, and it turns out that HTC's totally sick successor to the Hermes / TyTn is the O2 Mars which nails the aesthetics where the Hermes suffers so, and will supposedly come equipped with a 520MHz XScale, GPRS / EDGE / UMTS (sorry, no HSDPA), 64MB ram, 128MB flash, WiFi, Bluetooth, miniSD, and a 2 megapixel camera. Ok, so maybe we're only excited about this thing because it's one of the only QWERTY devices we've seen lately out of HTC that wasn't a little hard to look at (Excalibur, we're lookin' at you, buddy), but we don't need to excuse our love of gadgets, so if you'll let us continue our fawning. Thank you.

P.S. -Sorry, we didn't mean to gloss over the Jupiter, which appears to be the successor to the Breeze -- there's just not a lot of info there. Click on for some pics.

[Via the::unwired]

i-mate, purveyor of all things HTC, has gone ahead and picked up their first 3G Windows Mobile Smartphone -- the Breeze, that is -- and christened it "SP JAS." Nothing about the SP JAS stands out from its brethren marketed under other labels, save for one detail: it restores the front-facing cam lost on HTC's self-branded Breeze, the MTeoR. As with the MTeoR, buyer beware, as the SP JAS lacks GSM 850 and UMTS 850 / 1900, features originally (mistakenly) touted on some of HTC's marketing materials. Pricing and availability remain under wraps, but with Breezes starting to circulate through retail channels, we reckon i-mate'll be dropping shortly.

[Via the::unwired]

Unsuspecting American buyers of the MTeoR, HTC's self-branded cut of the 3G-capable Breeze candybar, might be a bit surprised to find that they're not having much luck with reception. Some versions of HTC's own marketing materials for the device list it as sporting quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS, but alas, it's actually a tri-band GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 unit with support for UMTS only on the European 2100 band. Of course, had this really been a tri-band UMTS phone, we'd have been throwing parties, launching fireworks, and generally making merry here at Engadget HQ, but for the few folks who've imported one of these pieces stateside, our hearts go out to you.

[Thanks, Rick V.]

Talk about sensory overload -- MoDaCo got its hands on a bunch of semi-official Orange debuts for a number of devices over the weekend, and we have to admit, we're insanely jealous. Perhaps the most interesting of the bunch, Samsung's "Blackjack" WM5 Smartphone comes fresh on the heels of the i320, offering basically the same functionality plus 3G data and a forward-facing camera for video calling (feeling the heat, Moto?). Also shown were the HTC Breeze and Oxygen, known on Orange as the C700 and C100 respectively; no real surprises here, though we can now confirm that the Oxygen won't be sporting DTV like we had previously heard might be the case. In case that all doesn't have ya impressed, the Hermes (M3100) and Star Trek (F600) showed up for the party, too. Don't know about you, but we're feeling a bit overwhelmed here; excuse us while we lie down for just a few minutes.

It's been a crazy few years for the once unknown Taiwanese OEM known as High Tech Computer. Although still not a household name like Sony or Samsung, HTC has leveraged its strong ties with Microsoft to offer tantalizing products that have made us early-adopters stand up and take notice, and now the company feels that it's in a strong enough market position to ditch the Qtek brand and begin selling phones under its own name. The Qtek phase-out was announced as part of HTC's official unveiling of the 3G Hermes Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone -- now known as the TyTN -- as well as the compact, UMTS-capable Breeze smartphone -- which is now called the MTeoR (yeah, we're noticing a MOTO-like naming trend too; see the rebadged STRTrk for further proof). In announcing July's European launch of these self-branded handsets, HTC reemphasized its dedication to the many carriers selling its products under their own names, but this development certainly bodes well for the company's overall name-recognition; imagine, instead of lying and telling people we have a Treo because Sprint-branded-UTStarcomm-PPC-6700-based-on-the-HTC-Apache sounds so nerdy, we may one day be able to proudly proclaim "Oh, it's an HTC." [Warning: PDF link]

[Via Geekzone, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

You may not be able to read it without the aid of some wonky Babelfish translation, but it's still well worth checking out Mobinaute's review of the HTC Breeze smartphone. They totally blow things out with a ton of detailed of pics, sample shots from the phone's camera, and a six minute long video demonstration of the handset (in French, of course). As previously reported, the handset itself has a 300Mhz Samsung 2442 processor, 240x320 TFT screen, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, Bluetooth 2.0, a MicroSD slot, 3G capabilities, and dual cameras (1.3 Megapixel on the rear for still pictures and a  352 x 388 CIF camera on the front for video calls). On the whole, Mobinaute seems fairly impressed with the handset, the biggest downside being the lack of integrated WiFi.

[Via coolsmartphone]