The smallest USB 3G modems look like grossly over-sized thumb drives, while the biggest ones sport hinges or fold-out antennas that serve as tripwires for absent-minded businessmen with venti frappuccinos walking by your tiny little coffee shop table. Huawei's E583X detaches all that bother, acquiring a 3G wireless signal and then beaming it out again as WiFi, meaning you can leave it in your pocket and get a double-dose of microwaves. It sports a 1,500mAh battery, giving it five hours of independent living, and in emergencies it can act as a tethered modem as well. Sadly this first version will only accept a single WiFi connection, but future ones will allow four others to mooch your data plan. That it also blinks randomly like a prop out of Star Trek's utopian future is just an added bonus. It's set to light up Europe next month -- likely with some hideous contracts attached.

Remember that mysterious Huawei Android number from MWC? It's all grown up and officially launched as the U8230 now. Specs are still maddeningly ambiguous, however -- the only hard info we've got is a 3.5-inch touchscreen and a 1500mAH battery, which is said to be the largest battery "among Android-powered handsets currently available." Considering the only set that's really out there is the notoriously battery-poor G1, that's not such a radical claim, but we'd sure love to test this one out in person when this launches (perhaps on T-Mobile?) alongside the 2.8-inch Windows Mobile-powered C8000 later this year.

Leaked carrier roadmap documents of unknown age and origin aren't necessarily the most accurate things in the world, but they are one very awesome, important thing: leaked. Pictured above is a fragment of one such spreadsheet that we've had the good fortune of receiving for T-Mobile USA -- obviously it's a little bit on the small slide, but no sweat, we'll walk you through what it's saying. Again, we wouldn't take these dates as the gospel truth, but we'd venture to say they're a good rough guide for what to expect out of these guys for the next few months. Move along for the full list!

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

If Microsoft had its way, Windows Mobile 6.5 wouldn't be coming to a retail device for a few months yet -- and if HTC had its way, manufacturers wouldn't be cloning its devices. This is the so-called real world, though, where a quick search on the internet will lead you to a cooked 6.5 ROM, and another search will instantly transport you into a magical universe of countless low-cost rips of your favorite name-brand handsets. It was just a matter of time before those two shady gray markets merged -- and, well, here you go. The Touch Viva knockoff is apparently based on a white-labeled Huawei platform that offers some sort of 460MHz core, quadband EDGE, a 3.2 megapixel cam, WiFi, and a 2.8-inch QVGA display. Given the forgettable design and spec sheet, we think you'd have to be extraordinarily hard up for 6.5 to bother dropping the requisite 1,099 yuan (about $161) -- but then again, you'd be making history with this one whether Microsoft likes it or not.

[Via wmpoweruser.com]

It's no secret that T-Mobile has some grand Android-based plans after the million-selling success of the G1, and although we've heard sketchy reports of future devices to come, it sounds like things are starting to firm up: CTO Cole Brodman told GigaOm yesterday that the carrier is planning to launch "multiple" Android devices from "three partners" later this year. One of those is pretty obviously the HTC Magic / Sapphire / myTouch, but that's just the tip of the potential iceberg here -- we've got a feeling that the Samsung I7500 "Houdini" will be involved, the G1 v2 is certainly interesting, there's that mysterious Huawei set we saw at MWC, and hell, we've even got reports of netbooks, tablets, and home phones in the mix. That's a lot of directions Timmy-O can go, any predictions?

"Loss" is a buzzword in the last couple quarters' worth of earnings reports from virtually every major manufacturer, but Huawei has somehow managed to operate in some bizarro La-La Land seemingly immune from the economic disaster unfolding around it. In 2008, the private Shenzhen-based firm posted an annual net profit of $1.15 billion, up some 20 percent from the year prior; it lost $776 million in the process due to the yuan's gains against the dollar, but that's still extraordinarily impressive. Interestingly, a majority of Huawei's business comes from outside China, suggesting that carriers around the world are looking outside traditional infrastructure suppliers like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia Siemens to save a few bucks -- notably including Cox for its upcoming 700MHz buildout. 2009 might be a bit weaker thanks to soft demand in Europe, but still, they're predicting a whopping 29 percent growth in contract wins. Good to see some serious success in a down market, isn't it?

[Via mocoNews]

Like this phone? Well, don't get too used to it, because we're not really seeing it launching properly outside of China. It happens to be the descriptively-named G7000 from Huawei featuring EDGE on both 850 and 1900 -- probably a quadband device, if we had to guess -- and, as you can probably gather from the pictures, it's got a full touchscreen. The design lends us to believe it could be rocking Android underneath that pretty face, but a quick glance through the manual suggests that it's nothing more than a proprietary OS destined for the same segment of the market clogged by countless modern feature phones. If you change your mind on the platform, though, Huawei, do let us know, okay?

Take this with some skepticism, but according to tmonews.com a "trusted source" has revealed an Android-based Huawei phone is currently being tested and heading to T-Mobile in Q3, a timeframe we heard about at MWC. Specs reportedly include a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, WiFi, and Cupcake, naturally. No word on UMA, but the site claims that a certain Mr. Blurrycam is dropping off photos and more details in next few weeks, so we'll keep our eyes on that.

By all accounts, it looks like T-Mobile USA will be offering the Huawei-sourced webConnect USB Laptop Stick, starting March 25 -- but there's a catch: according to some internal documentation, it'll only be available to existing customers. In other words, go ahead and get ready to sign up for a T-Mobile phone if you want T-Mobile data, because it looks like they're trying to scam two lines of service out of anyone wanting in on the action. Perhaps more notable is the fact that service will run $59.99 monthly, which will give you the same 5GB AT&T and Verizon give you for the same price. You get HotSpot access for that rate, but still, T-Mobile's historically been known for undercutting the big guys -- wouldn't it have been great to see this go for $49.99 instead?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

We were really hoping MWC would be Android's coming out party, but while there's a hefty amount of name-dropping at the show, nobody much seems ready to put hardware on the line. And then there's Huawei. We were expecting a handset from them at the show, and they're halfway there, announcing an Android phone, but only bringing a non-working prototype to show for it. The touchphone hardware is decidedly iPhone-esque, and almost seems too button scarce to work with the traditional Android interface, but that's where the rest of the story comes in: Huawei is working with an "established design consultancy" to develop its own custom interface for the device. The as-yet unnamed phone will be coming to market in Q3 of this year, and Huawei is currently in talks with a carrier who will rebrand the device -- the lack of finality there left much of the rest of the info on this phone shrouded. We're looking forward to learning more about this device in the coming months, but for now you can check out the tease of a gallery below, and the even less informative press release at the read link below.

We already knew Huawei's gearing up to enter the Android smartphone market -- at least in Australia -- and now the company has confirmed plans to show its first device at February's Mobile World Congress. Unfortunately we don't know much else at the moment, but we expect to shed some more light on this next month. Additionally, the company says it'll be showing the world's smallest modem, the world's first commercial HSPA+ Stick, and a new digital photo display, among other surprises. We're hoping those known unknowns turn out to be more Android phones, but something tells us they wouldn't be so coy with that.

[Via Phonescoop]

LTE just got officially legitimized under a month ago, and already Nordic-based TeliaSonera is lining up contracts in an effort to showcase its forward-thinking nature to the world. Both Huawei and Ericsson have been chosen to provide 4G LTE equipment for high-speed networks in Stockholm and Oslo, with SE proclaiming that the Swedish network will be ready for commercial launch in 2010. It's expected that the first devices to tap into these newfangled waves will be of the USB / external variety, with 4G handsets following six to twelve months later. Did our 3G just get slower, or are our brains already messing with us?

[Via Network World, image courtesy of BusinessWeek]

Read - Huawei deal
Read - Ericsson deal

Huawei's UMG181 holds a special place in the hearts of loyal T-Mobile users -- after all, it's not everyday that you see a USB modem with AWS 3G support. The cool cats over at CellPhone signal managed to get their hands around one, and while it looks about exactly like we thought it would, we're told that the general public should be able to find one as early as next month. Got enough patience to make it?