The recently announced Samsung SCH-r510 Wafer -- and at just 8.4 millimeters thin, this moniker is well deserved -- has landed at the Alltel shop, dear friends. This uber svelte XM Radio packin', EV-DO speedin' device has hit the shelves with the anybody-can-afford-it price of $49 dollars. If you aren't happy with just the XM Radio features, the Wafer also packs a memory slot (microSD) for music storage and stereo Bluetooth functionality to listen sans wires. For an entry level device and price, we're loving this tiny feature-packed handset.

We recall (vaguely) a time when CDMA phones were notoriously clunky compared to their GSM brethren; they were thick, built like tanks, and frequently sported aerial antennas flying shamelessly beyond the hinge. Well, yeah, those days are long gone. Exhibit A: the Samsung SCH-r510 "Wafer" candybar, just introduced by Alltel, clocking in at a ridiculous 8.4 millimeters thick. For the record, that's a solid half millimeter thinner than the A727 being passed around at CES this year, a phone allegedly destined for AT&T that's still nowhere in sight. Besides EV-DO, features include a 1.3 megapixel cam and the soothing knowledge that your carrying the thinnest durned cellphone your Alltel dollars can buy. On the low end, the SCH-u340 "Snap" (known simply as the u340 on Verizon) keeps it simple, offering a monochrome external display and nothing more than 1xRTT to speed those bits along. Look for the Wafer for $70 after rebates and the Snap for $10 -- both on contract, obviously.

[Thanks, Jeff]

Read - Samsung r510 Wafer
Read - Samsung u340 Snap

We've got all sorts of incredibly tiny chips serving very unique purposes, but Kyocera has developed a 10- x 8-millimeter wireless LAN wafer that should feel right at home in those oh-so-cramped innards of certain diminutive mobiles. The FWMG0-03 module comes in at just 1.25-millimeters thick, and provides full support for 802.11b/g protocols; aside from mounting all of the circuity on a single side of the board, compactness has been aided by the low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) used, "resulting in an enhanced bending strength of 400 MPa which is approximately double that of the general LTCC." The chip draws just 0.85 milliwatts while in standby, 550 milliwatts when transmitting data, and 291 (802.11b) / 345 (802.11g) milliwatts when receiving. While we aren't sure which cellphone manufactures are vying for batches of these minuscule modules, we do know that a trio of operating voltages will be available when these start "volume production within 2006," and SDIO / SPI will be the supported interfaces.