the HTC Cavalier has arrived and can be had online for only $565 dollars -- yeah we're with ya, that's a bit steep. This is an ideal handset to replace an aging BlackJack and we -- and we're sure many of you -- hope it gets comfy in AT&T's stable in the coming months. If you just can't wait, kick that old nasty Excalibur to the curb and hit up the Expansys site before they're gone.

The HTC Excalibur -- better known as the T-Mobile Dash in these parts -- is one of those almost-perfect handsets that has us saying "if only." Specifically, in this case we're thinking "if only it had 3G," and that's precisely where the Cavalier comes riding into our dreams like a phone in shining armor. Thus far no American carrier has stepped forward with plans to offer the Cavalier (AT&T, we're looking straight at you, kid), but at least they can do so now thanks to an FCC approval. With HSDPA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands on board, this sucker is truly a worthy upgrade to the already good Excalibur -- so let's try to speed things right along, yeah?

HTC's Asian outpost Dopod has officially announced two of its corporate parent's more hotly-anticipated models today -- the Vox and the Cavalier -- in the form of the C500 and C730, respectively. The C500, which has already seen retail duty in Europe as the Orange SPV E650, is arguably the more unique of the two with a spring-loaded QWERTY slide to accompany a full numeric keypad up front; sadly, 3G data is left entirely out of the equation. The C730 is the HSDPA follow-on to the Excalibur with a 2 megapixel cam and a rather comely (in our humblest of opinions) black shell. Thankfully, both come loaded with Windows Mobile 6 Standard. Look for the C500 this month for about $490, while C730 fans will have to wait until next month and shell out another hundred at $590.

Read - Dopod C500
Read - Dopod C730

Dopod is apparently set to bust out the follow up to its 3G-lacking little brother, the C720W (also known as the HTC Excalibur) with the Dopod C730. Based on the HTC reference Cavalier, it's touted as being loaded with Windows Mobile 6, a 400MHz Samsung CPU, Bluetooth, WiFi, quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, and UMTS / HSDPA (no word on frequencies here, but we hope for US varieties). This will be a decent upgrade for those of you enjoying the T-Mobile Dash or other Cavalier device -- and with virtually no size or weight difference, your pocket / belt holster will grin as well. No pricing info yet, but you can look for this to hit sometime in May.

Unboxing plain ol' released products is so 2006. The hip new thing is unboxing products that have yet to be released, like this here HTC Cavalier, and to a lesser extent, the iPhone. Boy Genius, international man of mystery, does the honors on this one, and while we don't see a box anywhere in sight, he makes up for it with a myriad of pics, so we're going to take his word for it that there was a box somewhere in these proceedings. As for the phone, that 400MHz processor, side mounted touch-wheel and 2 megapixel camera look just as promising in the flesh as they do on those oft-leaked spec sheets. Unfortunately, the phone seems to share its progenitor's curse of looking odd for the camera, but if it's as good in person as the Excalibur, we could still have a winner here. Unfortunately, HTC has sent out word that the phone is currently "postponed indefinitely," so we'll have to see what's up with that before we get our hopes too high for this little HSDPA number. Check another pic after the break, or peep the read link for the whole collection.

The 3G-enabled QWERTY smartphone market is finally starting to get a little crowded -- and that's a very good problem to have. Of course, that makes picking one out a bit more challenging (trust us, we're still not complaining) and it always helps to rock out with a nice, old-fashioned comparo now and then to separate the wheat from the chaff. This time around we have the Samsung SGH-i600 (alias i607 BlackJack in these parts) going up against the as-yet-unannounced HTC Cavalier, successor to the Excalibur / T-Mobile Dash. On paper, the two are nearly dead ringers for one another, with the major differences being a 2 megapixel cam on the Cavalier (versus a mere 1.3 megapixel piece on the i600) and a slight thickness advantage on the Samsung. Ultimately, the reviewer had the Cavalier coming out on top -- despite the fact it's not even available yet, suggesting the test was conducted with a preproduction unit -- though the i600 was nipping at its heels throughout. Bottom line: it seems like QWERTY lovers are going to be happy with either one, and with the HTC still at least a month or two from release, our impatient selves will take what we can get.

[Thanks, @t0mic]

Right on cue, now that everyone's got an Excalibur (i.e. T-Mobile Dash), HTC's latest creation shows up online. Obviously the successor to the sleek Excalibur, the Cavalier doesn't look as refined to these jaded eyes, but it's certainly got the horsepower under the hood to make up for its sharper, more Blackberry-esque lines. For starters, that 200MHz OMAP is now a 400MHz, which is just what's needed to power the UMTS / HSDPA. It's also got a higher capacity battery (though not by much -- 1050mAh over 960), a 2 megapixel camera, and the requisite 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0. Don't worry about it though, it won't make it to America until late spring by our wholly unscientific estimates, so your investment is safe for at least a couple months before importers make you miserable with longing.

Sorry to take the wind out of your sails just weeks after plunking down the cash for that T-Mobile Dash, folks, but you know how we roll: we gotta call it like we see it. If the rumors prove accurate, the updated Excalibur -- codenamed "Cavalier," it seems -- looks to make good on all the Excalibur's shortcomings by bundling UMTS, HSDPA, a shiny new 400MHz Samsung core (up from 200MHz), and a 2 megapixel cam (an extra 700,000 pixels to play with by our count, give or take), all of which should allegedly fit into a package that looks like a slightly porkier Excalibur. But the best part? This thing should be coming soon. Like, real soon; a few months at most. No word on carriers or pricing, but you can bet your Dash we'll be keeping a close eye on this one.