The Cream of the New Cell Phone Crop

Sleek sliders, colorful clamshells and the fastest Internet tablet yet: There was something for everyone at 2008 CTIA, the largest North American wireless telecom show.


A Pearl 8120 for the Masses

Just a few weeks ago, Research in Motion sent me a neat new BlackBerry Pearl 8120 to review -- then said it would be available only to AT&T Wireless' corporate customers. Well, now T-Mobile has remedied that annoyance: On April 14, it will begin selling a light silvery-gray version of the 8120 to its consumer customers. No price was announced, but the T-Mobile version will support HotSpot at Home, which lets you use the handset's Wi-Fi connectivity to make unlimited nationwide voice-over-IP calls using your home Wi-Fi network (everywhere else you will be using T-Mobile's GSM/EDGE network for voice and data). Here's my review of the AT&T Wireless version of the BlackBerry Pearl 8120.



RIM Introduces an EVDO BlackBerry Curve
Speaking of BlackBerries, here's the new BlackBerry 8330, a Curve that supports EVDO mobile broadband. The day before CTIA opened, Verizon Wireless announced it will offer the 8330 next month (this is the model shown) for $320, with a $50 mail-in rebate available as well as an additional $100 off if you sign up for a qualifying voice and data plan when you buy. The next day, Sprint announced that it will offer the phone later this month for $280 with a two-year contract; an additional $100 mail-in rebate will bring the cost down to $180. Sounds like a price war to me. (The 8330 also supports GPS, but not Wi-Fi.)



LG: Still EnV-ious
A couple of other phones are also refreshes of popular handsets. LG showed its enV2, the successor to the enV, an EVDO messaging phone that flips open to reveal a landscape-mode keyboard and 2.4-inch color display (there's also an external 1.4-incher, not too shabby). LG says it's generally sleeker and easier to use than its predecessor -- aren't they all?



An LG Vu for TV Viewing
Speaking of LG, here's the new touch-screen Vu, one of the handsets on which AT&T Wireless will debut its new mobile TV service. This is the same Qualcomm-created MediaFLO service that Verizon Wireless debuted at CTIA last year (a true broadcast service, as opposed to streaming video over the Internet). AT&T Wireless says it will cost $15 a month, but we have no hard details on exactly where it will be available and when. LG says the phone will appear in May -- which may be a clue. No pricing info for now.