Who would've thought that Nokia's first Series 40 dual slider would be for CDMA networks? Well, not so fast -- these two aren't exactly Series 40, it seems. Nokia hasn't announced either the 3608 flip or 8208 dual slider officially, but official specs and pictures have popped up on an Espoo-owned domain that reveal the China-bound handsets to operate on CDMA 800 / 1900, and in the case of the 8208, we can say with certainty that there's EV-DO Rev. A on board. Anyway, as we were saying, Nokia lists both as having "Series 40 Nokia like UIs," with "like" being the key word there; we suspect these are either still being manufactured for Nokia by a third party, Series 40 can't rock CDMA in its current incarnation, or a little bit of both. Trust us, though, Nokia -- that doesn't mean you shouldn't take these cute little guys global.

[Via MobileBurn, here and here]

Read - Nokia 3608
Read - Nokia 8208

Mmm hmm. That F400 dual slider we originally got wind of in February is the real deal, as confirmed by Samsung today. Designed with music aficionados in mind, the handset is equipped with ICEpower from Bang & Olufsen, which gets complemented with a 3-megapixel camera (with AF and a LED flash), 2.2-inch display, 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, twin stereo speakers, music hot key, FM tuner, Bluetooth 2.0, a 1GB microSD card and USB 2.0 connectivity. The unit itself is built on HSDPA tri-band technology, and while we know you US'ers would love to wraps your paws around it, Sammy would rather dish it out to the French in black / white motifs later this month, while sending it to other regions of Europe, Asia and the Middle East shortly thereafter. Tough noogies.

You know, if it weren't for retailers and the FCC, manufacturers' and carriers' employees would lead relatively stress- and hypertension-free lives -- but in this heavily embargoed, NDA'd, confidentiality agreemented world in which we live, bean spillage is an inevitable occurrence. We're not saying that's what's going on here, but we find it odd that Amazon would start offering Pantech's C810 dual slider Windows Mobile smartphone for AT&T with nary a peep from the carrier itself (not that we're complaining in the least). Even better, they're offering it for a cool $180 which seems really reasonable for a Windows Mobile 6 Standard device with UMTS in such a creative and useful form factor. Give us a holler in comments if anyone grabs it!

[Via Smartphone Thoughts]

Get ready to spend the weekend mindlessly sliding the Ocean's dual keypads open and closed until you drive friends and family to the brink of insanity (trust us, it's pretty addictive). Yep, that would be this weekend we're talking about -- Helio's new flagship device finally makes its debut on its website and store shelves today for $295, followed by a second wave of availability in a variety of third-party retailers toward the end of this month. Of course, unless you're within driving distance of one of Helio's handful of flagship locations, actually finding one today might be challenging; might we recommend our hands-on to hold you over while you patiently wait for the parcel to make its way to your doorstep?

And here it is, Helio's coup de grâce. The QWERTY handset we'd heard Helio was cookin' up with Korea's Pantech actually hit the FCC some time ago, but the shots we were able to glean from the test apparatus documentation were teasers at best. Thanks to the wonders of expired confientiality agreements, that same FCC documentation now yields a bounty of goodness, including a user's manual and a full array of pictures. The so-called PN-810 gives the illusion of a dual slider, but actually employs two distinct layers to provide two completely different keypads depending on the slide direction: QWERTY in one, numeric in the other. Key features (other than the unusual form factor, of course) include a 2.1 megapixel cam, Bluetooth, and the full array of goodies that comes with Helio membership. A release date remains uncertain, but the PN-810's been chilling with the feds for some time now, so we wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it hit in the near term.

It might be a few months yet before we see Nokia N95s start to circulate amongst the general populace, but far be it from that to stop Nokialist from putting a preproduction unit through its paces. Other than a niggle about the d-pad -- the reviewer would've preferred a joystick, a la E70 -- the hands-on was overwhelming positive, despite the fact that the super-ultra-early test model in their hands lacked some hardware (GPS, WiFi) promised for the production version. As one might expect, the software (S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, that is) is apparently the best thing since sliced bread, the dual slide is trick, the screen is gorgeous, and the 5 megapixel shooter is bananas. Sadly, about all the review has managed to do for us is make us want to lay our hands on this sucker a little more than we already did, but we're still in for a bit of a wait. Hang tight, folks.

[Thanks, Phill]

So it's not official official yet, but we know enough to say with some confidence that Nokia's oft-rumored N95 (alias N83) dual slider will be announced today. What does that mean? For one thing, it means we can move past the frustratingly blurry spy shots and onto some glamorous press photos, but more importantly, it takes the guesswork out of the spec sheet. Let's just put it this way: for anyone who thought the N73 was a half-baked effort, the N93 oughtta fit the bill. Nokia seems to be challenging naysayers to find a missing feature or buzzword, cramming in a 5-megapixel cam, integrated GPS, 802.11g, a 3.5mm audio jack (if the A2DP support isn't your cup of tea), 150MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, and HSDPA support (a first for Nokia). Word on the street has the everything-to-everybody N95 dropping in Q1 of 2007 for around €550 -- that's about $700, just in case the possible US release actually goes down.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]