It boggles the mind that Palm is still totally silent on the issue of global Pre availability; yes, granted, Apple employed similar foot-dragging following the original iPhone's launch, but the difference there was that Apple was under way, way less pressure from consumers and investors to immediately deliver a monster hit. We've heard rumblings as recently as late May that Telefonica has signed a deal to deliver the Pre on its various networks around the world, but since then, nothing -- and that's where some scrappy little distributor in Romania comes into play. A company called IRIS -- a smartphone distributor for years and Romania's authorized Apple outlet -- says that the Pre will be hitting shelves over there in September for something in the range of $550 unsubsidized, putting it right in range with what Sprint is charging off contract. Of course, by September, the Pre will be fighting a readily available iPhone 3G S and gobs of new Android sets, but webOS itself already proves that the new Palm knows how to work under pressure.

[Via GSMArena]

While most of the mobile browser attention these days seemed focused on Fennec and Opera Mini, there's another game in town, too. Torch Mobile has just announced that its long-awaited WebKit-based Iris Browser has finally reached version 1.1.0, and it's now ready for use on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 platforms. Torch Mobile's making some pretty bold promises about this here software, claiming that its "advanced WebKit-based engine easily renders virtually any site on the web the same as if viewed on a PC." Of course, you know what a phrase like this means, right? You better get to downloading in order to see if it's legit. Go on, get!

We know how it goes -- once you get your Windows Mobile setup situated how you like it, making tweaks is a rare, rare occurrence. To that end, you probably passed on the highly dangerous first beta of the WebKit-based Iris browser. At long last, the entirely more stable beta v2 has emerged for those courageous enough to give it a go, and the designers are promising that the over 100 fixes and improvements make it "incredibly fast" and almost life-altering. If you're not keen on waiting for the next iteration of Internet Explorer Mobile, and if you're somehow not pleased with Opera Mini or Mobile Firefox, roll the dice with this one and see how things turn out.

[Via the::unwired]

The Windows Mobile browser market is getting awful crowded lately, and the latest entrant brings a little Apple to the mix -- the Iris browser, from Torch Mobile, is based on WebKit, the same KHTML-derived rendering engine in Safari. We won't know how it compares to the iPhone's Mobile Safari until we get a chance to play with it, of course, but with support for touch, rotation, tabbed browsing and multiple windows, a customizable interface, and Netscape plugins, it's safe to say that we'll be keeping an eye on this one. If you're feeling brave, the preview release is available just beyond the read link.

It's been just under two months since getting a whiff of the forthcoming S640, and now it's time for US-based CDMA users to (officially) celebrate, as FCC documentation has finally outed the HTC Iris S640. The paperwork shows that the smartphone will indeed operate on CDMA850 / 1900 bands, include WiFi and Bluetooth, offer up EV-DO connectivity, and sport USB for syncing and charging. Additionally, the handset will reportedly tout a 2.4-inch 320 x 240 resolution LCD and a two-megapixel camera, and while it doesn't look like this one will be aimed at the elitists in the crowd, it should do quite well as a low-to-mid-range smartphone on whichever CDMA carrier(s) it ends up on.

[Via MobilitySite]

HTC's model naming convention has always been just a little tricky to commit to memory, and with this latest batch, it certainly ain't getting any easier. A couple of these we've heard about before -- namely the Nike, Kaiser, and Shangri-La -- but the rest are brand new to us and very exciting. First up, the S640 "Iris" is a CDMA rendition of the Excalibur and Cavalier, tossing in EV-DO rev. A and WiFi atop Windows Mobile 6 Standard. The "Vogue" is essentially a Touch (TouchFLO UI and all) with the same EV-DO rev. A guts as the Iris -- good news for Verizon and Sprint customers, we'd imagine. GSM users have reason to celebrate here too, though, in the form of the "Volans" and "Polaris." These two are upgrades to the Vox and Artemis, respectively, adding in much-needed 3G radios and faster processors. Finally, the P6550 "Sedna" appears to be some sort of industrial device with support for a credit card reader -- though with a 3 megapixel cam and 3G data, we wouldn't mind having one ourselves. Release dates are up in the air on most of these, but our money is on late '07.

[Via The Boy Genius Report]

Update: Crikey, the Shangri-La's slide reveals that the device -- HTC's entry into the UMPC fray -- runs both Vista and Windows Mobile 6. Sound vaguely familiar? [Thanks, Kevin]

What's that one killer feature missing from the HTC Apaches, Wizards, and Hermes of the world? Biometric security? Naw. DVB-H reception? Try again. It's an integrated barcode scanner, of course! ODM Inventec is about to correct that grave injustice, though, having pushed its "Iris" through the FCC for Opticon, which'll apparently sell it in two flavors as the H-16A and H-16B (not sure where the difference lies). The Windows Mobile Pocket PC looks fairly standard otherwise, featuring a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and support for both GSM 850 and 1900. Better watch your back, Symbol.