We suppose the uptick in smartphone demand could be to blame, depending on your perspective, but regardless of semantics, a new study put out by J.D. Power and Associates has found that surging interest in high-end handsets is causing the average purchase price of mobiles to shoot upward. Compared to 2007, consumers are currently paying around $9 more on average per phone. The average price rose to $101, up from $92 just six months prior, and it also marks the highest figure found since the study's inception in 2003. Analysts are pegging recent demand in RIM, Palm (saywha?) and Apple devices as the primary culprit, and it's noted that the average price paid for a smartphone these days is $208. Not surprisingly, these folks also found that the percentage of customers who receive free phones on contract has sank from 36% to 33% in the past six months. If you're the number loving type, be sure and hit the read link for lots, lots more where this came from.

[Via RCRWirelessNews]

We all know that manufacturers' listed talk times have limited basis in reality, but since the margin of fantasy varies from make to make and from model to model, there's really no way of accurately judging relative performance as you're cross-shopping phones. Norwegian site Amobil has undertaken the admirable (but daunting) task of performing 45 talk time tests in real-world conditions, spending countless hours and kroner in the process. To keep the talk times honest, Amobil simply placed a call in the same spot of their office for every handset, letting music continually play on both ends to roughly simulate a conversation until the test phone died. Surprisingly, Sony Ericsson dominated the GSM tests, rocking three models that stayed in the game for 7 hours or longer; less surprisingly, UMTS performance was eclipsed by GSM across the board with the Nokia E60 besting the 3G pack at 5:47. Frankly, if this report doesn't get you fired up for alternative power sources, we don't know what will.

[Thanks, Are S.]