Normally, low-end Windows Mobile Smartphones destined for China aren't anything to get terribly excited about, but Amoi's new quartet of handsets share a distinction that'll hopefully set a trend for the industry. The E72, E75, E76, and E78 Smartphones rock all manner of form factors (QWERTY included) but share largely common guts, and here's where it gets interesting: there's a TI OMAPV1030 "Vox" in there running the show at 200MHz. The Vox core is typically associated with high-function dumbphones; Amoi's use of it to power a smartphone could (and hopefully will) push the market toward ever-cheaper convergence devices that can run effectively on ultra low-cost processors. Despite skimping on the internals, the spec sheet holds its own with EDGE data, 128MB of internal storage, Bluetooth, and a 2 megapixel cam (1.3 megapixel in the E72). The first of the bunch to hit store shelves will be the E72, which will be available for under $250 -- when you consider that's an unsubsidized price, that's quite impressive indeed. Look for all four to be available in China by early '07.

[Via the::unwired]

The FCC is many things to many people, but for us, it's a library and an informant. In its latter capacity, the agency has scooped literally dozens upon dozens of phones for us; in its former, it serves as one of the most comprehensive sources of mobile phone user's manuals on the 'net. They're putting on their starched, three-piece suits and playing their librarian role this time around, releasing a cornucopia of PDFs relating to Motorola's low-cost MOTOFONE F3. The draft manual is a breath of fresh air for the manual haters among us -- we know who you are -- if it carries through to production in its current form, bearing just 10 (yes, ten) panels of important information on what appears to be a foldable pamphlet. Ultra low-end or not, we have to admit an irrational excitement is building around Engadget HQ to play around with this thing -- especially if the brief documentation suggests it's going to take like 90 seconds to learn.