We're all about reviews of products before they're released, but reviewing something before it's even been officially confirmed by a company is its own special brand of magnificent. Granted, these are more like the hands-on impressions of a self-confessed BlackBerry addict, who was willing to fork over $828 US on the off chance that the eBay auction the other day was actually legit. A week later Kevin of CrackBerry.com has the BlackBerry 9000 in hand and seems to be loving every minute of it. Apparently the keyboard is better than the 8800 series, the OS4.6 is smooth, fast and pretty, and the 480 x 320 LCD is "awesome." And don't get Kevin started on 3G: the logo alone brought a tear to his eye -- we're clearly dealing with a bona fide fanboy here. That said, it's an encouraging sign to see all those leaked shots weren't just for show, there's a real-live performer behind the legend. Kevin's major caveat is the size and weight of the phone, compared to his Curve, but we're sure the $828 hole in his checking account will have him coming to terms with that drawback in the near future. He'll be posting more details and impressions as he goes.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Griffin's antenna-stub sporting ClearBoost case for the iPhone just hit the streets, and opinions are already pouring in. The case involves the antenna, a bumper and a screen protector, and while the resulting combination is not much for loooks, iLounge found it to improve performance in certain situations. Apparently in very low coverage areas the ClearBoost isn't much help, but in wonky two or three bar situations ClearBoost added one or two bars. Sounds like a win to us, but you're going to have to have some serious need of signal to sacrifice iPhone aesthetics this totally.

[Via iLounge]

Mere mortals will need to wait until the third quarter of the year -- if not longer, depending on their region and tolerance for some probable price gouging in the early going -- to get their hands on the mighty Nokia N96. On the other hand, Mobile-review apparently knows the right hands to shake and eyes to wink to get hold of a prototype unit extraordinarily early, and they're taking full advantage of the opportunity. A few hours of your time devoted to the novella of a review will net you a deep understanding and appreciation for the N96's strengths and follies, but in a nutshell, the site seems to come away with a pretty ambivalent opinion of a device that should be knocking everyone's socks off -- especially for a sticker price that'll hover in the $800 arena. Problems included a penchant for picking up dirt and fingerprints (the price you pay for a beautiful glossy face, we suppose), a cramped nav key layout with the tricky touch-sensitive Navi Wheel front and center, audio performance that wasn't bad but was expected to be far better in light of the dedicated DSP, and a "shovel"-like feel in the hand, a symptom of the phone's generous dimensions. Everyone owes the production version of the N96 a chance to show its true form when it's released later this year -- and hey, at least Nokia's got a checklist of things that need improvement in the prototype now -- so we're keeping our chins up that this'll still make the N95 8GB a proud daddy when it comes time to hand over the crown to the Nseries kingdom.

[Via Tech Digest and NokNok]

Now that BlackBerry Pearl 8120s are trickling into AT&T's retail channel, so are the reviews, and it looks like we have a worthy (if not modest) successor to the original 8100 on our hands. PC Magazine's quick look at RIM's latest "fashion" phone (we use that term very loosely here) reveals that the 8120 continues RIM's tradition of handling business tasks with aplomb while stepping up its personal game in a big way; the external microSD slot had no trouble taking an 8GB microSDHC card, and let's be honest, there really isn't anything to not like about a 3.5mm headphone jack. Sound quality is apparently quite good -- another RIM trademark -- and the web browser has mercifully improved over what the 8100 brought to the table. Sadly, the WiFi apparently doesn't do much good; browsing with it doesn't yield much of a performance gain over EDGE for some reason (a problem seen on T-Mobile's Curve, too) and the lack of VoIP support is a bummer. Kudos to AT&T for protecting its voice revenues, we guess. Overall rating? 4 / 5, which we figure should be enough of an endorsement to swing a few BlackBerry faithful headlong into the 8120 boat.

There is certainly a substantial amount of hype built around LG's latest stab at the QWERTY phone market for Verizon Wireless -- the VX10000 Voyager -- and it isn't without merit. For starters, the feature-packed candybar sports a 2.81 inch exterior touchscreen paired with second display of equal size and a full keyboard on the inside. In the media department, the handset features a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus, video camera, expandable memory via microSD up to 8GB, and VCAST services of both the Music and TV varieties. Do the features stack up in Verizon's favor? Does the Voyager live up to the hype or will it fall short of expectations? Continue reading to find out.

Okay, now we know what you're thinking. Sure, we (lovingly) raked Palm over the coals in our open letter to the company, and yeah, we haven't been the sweetest of hearts to the crew from Sunnyvale (with good reason, of course). However, If you've paid attention to our past good-intentioned prodding, then you'll know that getting our hands on a new Palm device still gives some of us geeky chills.

After seeing scores of "leaked" photos of the Centro, and hearing enough internet chatter about the device to make your brain vibrate like a tightly-wound piano string, actually getting our hands on the phone was honestly a bit of a surprise, both bad and good. We're going to break it down piece by piece and hopefully give you a rounded impression of the smartphone crown-chaser (or at least princess-in-waiting).

RCR had the opportunity to fiddle around with the live, fully functional DVB-H trial Hiwire is running in cooperation with T-Mobile in Las Vegas, and if the phrase "ready for prime time" is any indication, it sounds like they liked what they saw. Using an LG U900 for service, RCR ran around Sin City comparing Hiwire's efforts to Verizon's MediaFLO-based VCAST TV -- a service that's been live for much of this year -- and found that the two were pretty much a wash for user experience. Hiwire's 24 channels of mind-numbing entertainment bests VCAST TV's lineup by a wide margin, but VCAST TV took significantly less time to switch between those channels (2 seconds compared to about 5); interestingly, though, VCAST TV seemed to be about 5 seconds delayed behind Hiwire, so it's a tradeoff. Of course, as RCR points out, Hiwire suffers from the same fundamental problem as VCAST TV -- subscribers would be paying for pretty much exactly the same content they're already paying for on their home televisions, albeit on a heck of a lot smaller screen -- so even if the service looks ready for commercial launch, is anyone ready to buy?

Now that the successor to LG's Chocolate line has been available to Verizon Wireless customers, we thought it would only be fitting to put the latest addition through the paces and see if the VX8550 is a worthy successor. From a quick glimpse, both the LG VX8500 and the VX8550 both share the slide up form factor both sporting a hidden keypad. LG has kept the camera on the back of the slide on the VX8550. This allows for safe storage of the camera when not being used while also decreasing the amount of fingerprints, smudges, and scratches on the lens.

You know the newest member of the Chocolate lineup that just launched moments ago? Well, the sly folks over at PhoneArena were somehow able to scrounge up a VX8550 for themselves and give it a good once over for the rest of us doing without. The crew was able to inspect the minutiae that we're all intrigued by, including the chrome scroll wheel, rearranged keypad, microSD slot that handles cards up to 4GB in size, and all the application critiquing you could ever want. Review wise, they seemed quite pleased with the overall call quality, noting that it was "better than the previous model" and featured "noticeably less noise and distortion when the volume was raised to the highest setting." It was realized, however, that the quoted battery life was about an hour overstated, and although the new navigational pad presented a few quirks, the overall vibe was definitely positive.

We're only half kidding when we say we haven't slept since June 29! Come reap the mighty review we've sown over on Engadget, broken down into three easy-to-swallow sections -- we promise it's worth the time.

Until just very recently, the terms "smartphone" and "fashion" seemed doomed to travel very different paths, never to intersect -- not in a product consumers could actually get their hands on, at least. As carriers and customers demand that their mobile companions become ever more featureful, though, the line separating high-end dumbphones and full-out smartphones bends, then bends some more, then finally breaks, leaving a clear-cut market for ultra-stylish open platform devices in its wake. There will always be buyers ready and waiting for handsets like the RAZR 2 and the Shine, but when Joe and Jane Businessperson are looking to open Word documents by day and get noticed in the bar by night, something's gotta give.

Paul from MoDaCo has our envy today, having recently taken possession of HTC's pièce de résistance -- the HTC "Kaiser" -- which looks to make a self-branded debut bearing the model number P4550. As he points out, HTC left virtually nothing out of the P4550 as Windows Mobile-based QWERTY sliders go; the 256MB of onboard Flash, 128MB of RAM, 3 megapixel cam, HSUPA, and trick flip-up display all set new marks for lustworthiness in the category. What's more, the device is said to be really snappy with Windows Mobile 6 and a 400MHz Qualcomm MSM7200 core, picture quality from the camera is superb, and voice quality is apparently top notch. The conclusion? "It's quite simply awesome." Too bad it's also quite simply not available yet.

First, a disclaimer: this is a peripheral no one wants, but many will need. The Belkin Headphone Adapter for the iPhone simply allows you to do what you should be able to do without any adapter whatsoever -- plug in a plain ol' set of headphones. This was a pretty clear-cut play on Apple's part to give itself and official accessory manufacturers some license to further scar our already irreparably damaged wallets, and frankly, we're bitter that we had to buy it for a stiff $9.95. But yeah, whatever, let's get on to the good stuff.