It doesn't take a usability expert to recognize flaws in the phones we use day in and day out, yet inexplicably, for most of us the perfect phone doesn't yet exist. The explanations range from a stall in battery technology to capitalism (manufacturers need to perpetually give us reasons to upgrade, after all) to simple laws of physics, but any way you slice it, there are improvements to be made. CNET UK's Andrew Lim has described his perfect cellphone in great detail, and surprisingly, it's not that far out -- in fact, we'd venture to say that it's completely manufacturable with 2007 technology (though the autofocus 5 megapixel cam with 3x optical zoom in a 10 millimeter body might be a stretch). One idea in particular really caught our eye: an always-on e-ink display up top (a la MOTOFONE) for the important stuff, keeping the large, bright OLED primary display off in an effort to save battery life. Click through for the whole story, it's an interesting read -- and a somewhat depressing look into just how far we are from mobile nirvana.

[Thanks, Thomas G.]

According to CNET, Cingular [aka, the new AT&T] has "confirmed" June 11 as the release date for Apple's iPhone. Keep in mind that confirmation in this case is unofficial as it supposedly comes from a front-line sales support person. See, after a call to Cingular's customer service, CNET was transfered to sales where they were told of the magical date. Of course, all this makes perfect sense as the 11th also marks the kickoff of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference where Steve and Co are always keen to announce new wares.

[Thanks, Adam]

CNET's Australian outpost had a chance to put the ASUS P525 smartphone through its paces recently, using the BlackBerry 7130 series and the just-launched HP iPAQ hw6900 series as measuring sticks. They found it compared favorably to both, clocking in a bit heavier (though similarly sized) to the 7130 and besting the hw6900 for battery endurance, though some folks cross-shopping the P525 with the hw6900 might be swayed by the latter's QWERTY keyboard nonetheless. Strangely, though the P525 includes business card recognition software, the reviewer found that the phone's 2-megapixel cam wasn't sufficient to deliver the clarity needed for the software to actually function. The lack of 3G is a downer, too, but hey -- it looks mighty purty, and that's the important thing with a smartphone, right?

As far as rumors go, this one is about as thin on the deets as they come, but Cnet Asia is reporting that Sony Ericsson senior VP of Product and Application Planning, Rikko Sakaguchi, actually alluded to plans for a game-playing phone at a recent press event in Sweden. During what was presumably the Q&A portion of a media conference in honor of the merged company's fifth anniversary, Sakaguchi reportedly answered a question about a theoretical PSP phone (most decidedly NOT pictured above) by saying simply that Sony Ericsson "is working on something," but that "the surprise must be kept for the future." Yeah, we know, not too much meat here -- Sakaguchi did mention that the objective was to integrate gaming and communications functions, not to create a dedicated gaming device (whatever that means) -- however, after the relative success of its Walkman and Cybershot lineup of handsets, it certainly makes sense for the company to leverage the PlayStation brand in this market as well. Sony Ericsson would be wise, though, to learn from Nokia's experience with the N-Gage, which is that, well, people don't like the N-Gage. So, here's to hoping that the Ericsson side of the equation can knock some sense into the Sony side of the equation, or else we may end up with a bulky, side-talkin' handset which uses even more proprietary formats that no one is interested in.

[Via Maxconsole]

The Motorola rumor mill is in full grind mode lately, with word of an impending slider version of the RAZR, called the "Capri," coming hot on the heels of the "Canary" photos that have been fluttering around lately. According to Cnet's Alpha blog, the quad-band GSM Capri will be no thicker than the SLVR, sport a "high-resolution" CCD (what that means for cameraphones is unclear -- 1.3 megapixels? 2.0? 3.2?), and also a TransFlash slot, probably for storing tunes. Although no pics of this rumored model are available yet, Cnet speculates that it will be quite similar to the Korea-only MS600 (pictured, also referred to as the "RAZR slider), which is a bit thicker than the SLVR but takes many of its design cues from the trusty RAZR.

[Thanks, Hitechy and Corey]