While largely steering clear of the limelight, Android managed to make the occasional cameo at CTIA last week, including a prominent presence at Qualcomm. PC Magazine checked out a very fresh build of the platform running on some weird, giant, prehistoric-looking prototype handset running Qualcomm's MSM7201 silicon, but be cool -- the phone certainly won't see the light of day looking anything like this, and more importantly, it runs Quake at a nice clip. They've got a full gallery highlighting a new UI and the rather hilarious handset itself, so we really do recommend a quick peep.

We're really not so sure we can envision mounting one of these in our own slab, but we'll admit, Motorola's Smart Rider is just about the most fully-featured car kit we've ever seen. The thing's pretty freaking massive and the screen's plenty clear, which we figure is perfect for drivers who want to minimize the amount of time they spend fiddling with controls and maximize the time they spend... oh, you know, driving. In general, the device could stand to be just a little less angular -- we figure a few folks are going to balk at mounting this giant hunk of plastic in their beloved rides -- but then again, the device seems targeted squarely at fleets where aesthetic beauty is far from priority one. Click on to the gallery to get a sense of what we mean.

We meandered through Nokia's booth at CTIA Wireless last week in search of interesting wares, and came back with pretty positive results. Granted, nothing starting with "N" or "E" was announced at the show -- unless you count the N810 WiMAX Edition, which we don't -- but there was still plenty of unreleased kit at the show, including the N78, the 6210 Navigator, and a pair of really sleek CDMA flips. Speaking of the CDMA flips, the 1606 and 3606 headlined Nokia's CTIA intros -- and we've gotta admit, we were surprisingly pleased with the hardware. The designs are beautiful, smooth, clean, slim, and unlike anything we've seen out of Espoo in the past; they're worthy efforts for a company that pays very little mind to the world of CDMA, and a merciful sign that the painful Pantech partnership era appears to be over. Check out the gallery for the full pictorial!

On a typical day, anything shown off at CTIA with a "coming in 2010" sticker would cause some serious unrest, but given that we've already found that LTE is eons (or so it feels) away, we're just taking things in stride. The MSV prototype shown above will purportedly become a proud member of the L-Series, and its satellite / cellular hybrid system will enable it to play nice on traditional cell bands as well as snag sat coverage anywhere in North America. Apparently the firm is planning on shooting up a pair of birds in 2009 as well as landing a deal with an undisclosed US carrier, and the 0.6-inch thick unit itself should feature a 480 x 320 multi-touch screen, WiFi and an integrated camera. No word on a price just yet, but feel free to check back in a few years.

NTT DoCoMo had a pretty lavish setup here at CTIA, though no new product caught our eye. However, they did have the results from the Super 3G / LTE shenanigans they've been up to in Japan, and the results show serious speed. They're touting Super 3G / LTE as 3.9G -- wow, that extra .4G seems to be making a huge diff -- with theoretical downlink and uplink speeds listed as 70Mbps and 300Mbps. Compared to current HSPA speeds this is a monstrous leap, can you say kiss your cable goodbye? Hit the gallery below for more pics.

We're still smarting from the apparent cancelation of the fabulously powerful K850 from AT&T's 2008 lineup, but as consolation prizes go, the Z750a ain't bad. That being said, it's solidly seated in the midrange, which seems like an unusual place for Sony Ericsson's very first carrier-launched 3G handset for the US to be; the 2 megapixel camera isn't going to "wow" anyone, and the choice of colorful, ultra-gloss shells definitely limits the phone's appeal to a certain demographic. On the bright side, the music player has an XMB appeal to it -- users of other recent Sony Ericssons will feel right at home with the app -- and it's one of the better built-in players currently available on any handset. The Memory Stick Micro slot makes that player just a little trickier to use for anyone that isn't already using Sony Ericsson kit, but c'est la vie, we suppose. Check out some shots in our handy dandy gallery here.

Late last year, we were still wondering whether LTE even had the backing to keep up with WiMAX. Fast forward to CTIA 2008, and my, how the tables have turned. Vodafone, which already teamed up with Verizon in order to initiate an LTE trial in 2008, urged the rest of the wireless sector to put its support squarely behind Long Term Evolution. Vodafone Group's CEO, Arun Sarin, suggested that we could all see mobile internet speeds more similar to those enjoyed on the PC today if the industry "rallied around one broadband standard," specifically noting that "we need to look at LTE as an all-encompassing standard." The push comes hot on the heels of Sprint's unfortunate delay of its XOHM WiMAX network, but it should be noted that infrastructure vendors in attendance tended to feel that the two would coexist at least in the short term. Sheesh, let's just forget this whole LTE / WiMAX spat and place our bets on TD-SCDMA.

Fresh out of the FCC's lair comes a new pair of QChat-enabled mobiles ready to launch on Sprint: Sanyo's Pro-200 and Pro-700. Unsurprisingly getting official at CTIA, the pair of Nextel Direct Connect devices can handle all the hot PTT action you could ask for, and while the Pro-200 (shown above) checks in with Bluetooth, messaging capabilities and mobile e-mail, the beefier brother (pictured after the jump) touts a ruggedized shell "certified to military standards for dust, shock and vibration." Curiously, the duo is only expected to go on sale in "limited markets" this month, with availability popping up elsewhere in due time; those eager to get their chirp on can plan on dropping $49.99 / $69.99 on contract, respectively.

[Thanks, Colton]

At AT&T's press feast today, the focus was unquestionably the trial deployment of Microsoft's Surface kiosks to stores later this month -- the presence of Microsoft's own Robbie Bach was testament to that fact. But there was more to the action by the time the show was over. Deployment of 3G and 4G services was a hot topic both during CEO Ralph de la Vega's presentation and in the post-conference Q&A (one member of the press lamented the fact that AT&T's BlackBerrys still lack HSDPA), and at one point he mentioned that all of the carrier's smartphones would be 3G within a matter of mere "months."

We figure that instantly thrusts several devices onto (and off of) AT&T's roadmap in the very near future, including a 3G iPhone and the BlackBerry 9000 we recently saw strutting its stuff. Of course, that would also preclude the just-introduced Palm Centrofrom hanging around for very long, since it tops out with EDGE speeds; last time we checked Garnet had a hard time handling HSDPA, so something's got to give. We're not writing the obit just yet -- CEOs' statements are often a mere shadow of reality, after all -- but it's certainly food for thought.

So what you see here is exactly what AT&T and Microsoft will be deploying to a handful of stores on April 17 -- 12 stores in four cities, to be exact -- and we have to admit, this appears to be a pretty flawless execution of the Surface's user interface concepts and a great business model for the 30 inch, multitouch monster to undertake. Being able to throw down a phone or two and get specs, review plans, and compare features is simply jaw-droppingly cool, though what really got us was another feature that AT&T has apparently been tossing around as a future possibility: device-to-device transfer. The idea is that a customer would walk in to purchase a new phone, place both phones on the surface, and contacts, photos, music, and so on stored on the old handset would appear on the Surface, where they could be selectively dragged to the new one or discarded. Even better, you have the exciting opportunity to pick up the last user's norovirus as you run your hand along the thing. One suggestion, AT&T: keep some bleach handy. Please. For our sake. Follow the break for the video!

Taking the carrier out of the equation for just a moment, let's get to the hard-hitting question about the two flavors of the 8330: which color combo do you prefer?

Qualcomm's making a big push to let handset manufacturers know that its mirasol display technology is a sharp way to cut power consumption, thanks to the fact that the screens are really freakin' good at reflecting ambient light. Part of the problem, of course, is that virtually all phones outside of emerging markets demand color displays; mirasol tech isn't quite there yet, but it's getting there, and Qualcomm was showing off a nonfunctional example of what a high-end color mirasol phone could look like (think Motorola Q9, with more mirasol). The Hisense C108 candybar is an ultra low-end unit with the distinction of being the world's first phone to employ a mirasol screen in production, so we just had to play around with it. We admit, it's stellar at reflecting light even when conditions aren't the best, but obviously a backlight's still a necessity for using the phone in darkness. As for the phone itself... well, let's just keep its price point in perspective before we harsh on it, alright?

"Kyocera" and "GSM" are two words we're not used to putting in the same sentence, but we're going to have to start warming up to it now that the company has come rolling into CTIA with a full fleet of four GSM devices. Both its GSM and CDMA lineups here range from the very low end to the midrange; nothing terribly exciting, though the E3500 clamshell features a pretty familiar RAZR 2-esque design on the outside (complete with music controls) while managing to push the price point considerably lower -- of course, one only need open it up and glance at the size of the screen to see where the costs were cut.

Over on the CDMA side, we handled a limited edition Wild Card for Virgin -- not bad at all -- but the real draw here has to be the Neo E1100 with its "light-pipe" down the front. It's extremely difficult to show it off in pictures, but trust us, it works, and it's bright. Obviously it's a gimmick more than anything else, but rest assured, if your E1100 is sitting across the room on silent, you'll definitely know when you're getting a call.