Turns out Mini 3i is only the beginning. Dell has announced plans to create a new Communications Group with a focus on mobile phones and similar portable devices. Current consumer division head and former Motorola exec Ron Garriques will take the helm. Not much else to say at this point, but make no mistake, Dell is now officially in the phone business for the long haul.

Yet another reason to love the Swedes: they give us juicy details. Former LG Sales Manager turned HTC Sweden exec Patrik Andersson has dropped word that a sequel to HTC Hero is coming next year. We know what you're thinking: an upgrade to the company's successful multi-carrier flagship Android device? You don't say! The real interesting point here is when it'll make its debut, and that's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this February. Happy Valentine's, indeed, and if you get to the press conference early, save us a seat?

It's a source code-palooza these days! Fresh off that huge HTC code name find, someone's dug into the Motorola CLIQ's source code and found references to a new Motorola device dubbed "La Jolla." Meaning "The Jewel" in Spanish, La Jolla apparently means "low-end Android clamshell" in Motorola-ese, with mention of a WQVGA screen, 528MHz processor and what seems to be a QWERTY keyboard. (What such a phone might look like is pictured above. Thanks, LG). In fact, a QWERTY Android clamshell (the clamshell bit was extrapolated from the display driver by the folks at AndroidandMe, but sounds reasonable) seems to be the perfect cure for the recent rash of QWERTY featurephones we've been seeing lately, perfect for the SMS / email junky that doesn't want to bother with high-powered apps or a big price tag or the resistive touchscreen-only typing of the HTC Tattoo. Now, if only could find some device source code that could solve our trigger shyness brought on by this steady stream of Android handsets -- not that we're complaining.

Early termination fees have always represented the flipside of subsidized pricing -- the necessary evil that keeps free phones free. Thing is, they were tough enough to swallow at $175 or $200, but Verizon's recently gone for the jugular in a hell-bent effort to keep subscribers locked in by upping the fee on vaguely-defined "advanced devices" (read: any phone a power user would ever want) all the way up to a mind-bending $350. Turns out the FCC is as confused and worked up as everyone else, though, having fired off a 4-page communique to Verizon's veep of legal and external affairs today asking how customers are notified of the new ETF, how the prorating formula is calculated (hint: they don't like that you still pay $120 after 23 months of a 24-month contract), and how an "advanced device" comes to be, among other things. Riding on the letter are a few extra questions about inadvertent mobile web charges for customers that aren't signed up for a data plan, totaling nine paragraph-long queries that the feds want answered by December 17. Your move, Verizon.

[Thanks, Daniel P.]

HTC has pulled no punches about the fact that it intends to bring Heros up to Android 2.0 (or is that 2.1?) spec at some point, though neither Sprint nor Verizon had quickly followed on to assure customers that there'd be upgrades ready and waiting for their versions (sure, technically, the Droid Eris is a different internal HTC codename than the Heros of the world, but they're basically brothers from the same mother). Well, good news: Verizon has just announced that it'll be bringing the phone to a "newer" build of Android with integrated Google Maps Navigation for release in the first quarter of 2010. Since Google's nav app works on 1.6 now, that really doesn't give us much of a clue which version the Droid Eris can expect to see -- but seeing how we have leaked Hero firmwares running on 2.1 at this point, that'd seem like a probable target. With the Droid taking a baby step to 2.0.1 in the next few weeks, it seems at least possible that the shadow-dwelling Eris could end out ahead in the never-ending Android version game -- crazy how the world works, isn't it?

The folks at ABI Research have done up a nice summary of the status of mobile WiMAX globally, saying that they expect the total number of subscribers to be at around two million come January. Overall it's not the most optimistic picture, with many service rollouts falling short of their projected aims both in availability and in subscribers, South Korea's numbers "stagnant," and LTE breathing down everybody's necks -- particularly in the US and Japan. Still, there are some notable bright spots, most particularly Russia's Yota service, which broke 200,000 subscribers last month after five months of commercial operation, and which is also flirting with profitability at this early stage. Clearwire is the other main shining light, with "more-than-adequate funding" allowing for an increased pace of deployment. It's hard to say just exactly what sort of market share we should expect from WiMAX in the long run, but after the painful eons of CDMA vs. GSM, we really are rooting for one of these 4G technologies win decisively over the other.

There's no debating it: having 8GB of onboard storage on your phone is great. What's even better, though, is if you can actually use it -- and currently, owners of Palm Pres and Pixis are stuck with an arbitrary limit for curious technical reasons that caps app installations after a couple hundred megabytes and change. Back in the day when the App Catalog had a few dozen submissions, that was fine and dandy -- but these days, owners are staring down the barrel of a selection more than 500 apps deep, so the time's definitely come to put this annoyance to bed. PreCentral is reporting that webOS 1.3.5 will finally kill this one by moving app storage to another partition on the device's memory -- the media partition -- which has about 7GB free on a completely virgin phone. Coincidentally, this is the same partition that gets used when you hook up mass storage mode on a PC, so to prevent unencumbered copying of apps off the device, Palm will allegedly be employing some sort of on-the-fly encryption that keeps apps secure while connected. Next step, Palm: microSD expansion so we can install each and every one of those 500-plus apps. What do you say?

Until robots rule, we're still within our rights to do pretty much anything to our gadgets short of chucking them at the help. Still, some of you might want to look away as Nokia's promising flagship handset -- the Maemo powered N900 -- is stripped of its components and Finnish dignity to reveal its ARM Cortex-A8 CPU and PowerVR SGX 3D accelerator soul. Check the unofficial how-to video after the break. If you look real close you just might spot the difference between this "mobile computer" and a smartphone.

The AT&T-bound iPAQ Glisten from HP has been unboxed for our viewing pleasure, video of which can be found immediately after the break. If you're not in such a hurry though, you'll want to know it's an AMOLED-fronted, Qualcomm-powered (533MHz) WinMo 6.5 device, which brings the BlackBerry form factor sans the RIM user experience, but plus a touchscreen. Another thing to note is that AT&T's online store will be the only place to get it, at the already announced $179.99 after rebates on a two-year deal. The video does a good job of comparing HP's return to the mobile space with a pair of similar devices, and we're left with the impression that it's a pretty chunky machine, but as usual we recommend seeing it for yourself -- and you already know where to find it.

No sooner do we get brief corner glimpses of the supposed Motorola Sholes tablet do we get tipped off to this writeup from Androidin.net which has a number of pictures of an eerily similar keyboard-less handset with a 3.7-inch screen, Android 2.1, FM radio, and interestingly enough, only a 5 megapixel camera -- last we heard it was going to be 8. Also debatable is a HDMI port, since the image that would show it is a tad too blurry. Otherwise, it seems to be about in line with what we expected, and it also seems destined for China Unicom as the XT701 (analogous to China Mobile's Motorola Android device). Now how about a few dashes of hope we'll see this stateside, eh Moto? Two more shots after the break.

[Thanks, yee]

It's an all too brief look, but it's infinitely more than we've seen so far. CNET Asia has managed some hands-on time the Zii Trinity concept smartphone. Quite a looker, and here we also get a glimpse of it next to the good ol' Zii Egg. As noted by the narrator, the bottom proprietary slot can be swapped for microUSB or mini-HDMI, there's a notably-sized 5 megapixel camera on the back, as well as one on the front for video conferencing. Enough talk, take a gander for yourself after the break.

[Thanks, kumar]

There's something peculiar about Verizon's latest addition to its promotional Droid onslaught. Sure, we get the expected Mad Libs-esque hyperboles like "it rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana," but other nods seem to indicate an acknowledgement that, well, it's not the prettiest of flagship phone princesses. "Should [a phone be] be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?" (Wonder who that's a reference to.) Listen Verizon, trading "hairdo for can do" is great and all, but why can't we simply have both brains and beauty? Still, it's nice to know the fighting words haven't all but left the industry. See the ad for yourself after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

If you're looking for the fast, fun, and easy way to "enhance the user experience" on your Droid this holiday season, look no further than the Android 2.0.1 update that Verizon just slipped us some info on. We don't have an exact drop date at this point, but we're told that Droid owners can expect an over-the-air package in the "coming weeks" -- and most notably, changes will include improved camera autofocus and better voice reception. Since these particular fixes are presumably device-specific, it's interesting that this is being done in lockstep with an official Android trunk release -- but all Google's saying is that the underlying platform contains "several bug fixes and behavior changes, such as application resource selection based on API level and changes to the value of some Bluetooth-related constants." Good stuff.

Update: Google's got a changelog posted -- check it out. Nothing that's going to blow your mind.

So the good news here is that Verizon's rumored buy-one-get-one-free deal on its Android line this weekend is shaping up to be legit -- the bad news, though, is that the most expensive (and probably most desirable) option is getting left out in the cold. Well, that's not quite true -- you'll still be able to take part in the offer if you buy a Droid, but for your free phone on the second line, you'll be stuck with a Droid Eris from HTC -- a phone that normally runs $100 instead of the Droid's $200. Of course, the Droid Eris is still a great little device, and as for Verizon, don't worry about them -- they'll get their money back. Trust us.

The International Imaging Industry Association -- colloquially known as I3A -- announced today that Google's signed on as a member of the non-profit organization. They've also simultaneously announced that pre-existing member Microsoft has joined forces with Google on the Camera Phone Image Quality Initiative. What's that all about? The initiative, which also calls Motorola, Eastman Kodak, Nokia, and other members, is dedicated to creating the metrics needed to "produce an accurate and repeatable testing program for camera phone image quality." Considering the wild variances in quality among different cellphones, such formalized measurement techniques would surely be welcomed by everyone on planet earth.

Multi-purpose adapters aren't anything new, but it's often the simplest of the bunch that prove most useful. Take this bugger for instance, which is little more than a vanilla 3-port USB hub connected to an iPhone / iPod dock connector port. The purpose for its existence? To prevent you from having to haul Apple's flimsily built charging cable and a USB hub with you each time you scurry out, and to just generally make your time on this planet entirely more enjoyable. Now if only it could recharge our prototype Volt that we've secretly got hiding in the Engadget Garage, we'd really be able to extol the $14.99 asking price.

One of the natural side effects of being the largest maker of cellphones in the world is that you produce a lot of different models -- a lot -- which makes it way too easy for product planning, engineering, and marketing to all have corners cut for even the most important devices in the herd. Nokia seems to be coming to terms with that, though, announcing that it'll scale back from "around 20" smartphones released this year to roughly a half of that in 2010, allowing it to give each phone the TLC it so desperately needs. Interestingly, the company says that it's looking to the low- to midrange smartphone realm as a hot new competitive frontier -- and an area where it'll "have tools to play offence [sic] as well as defense," possibly thanks to its continued involvement in Symbian even as it looks to Maemo to grow the high end. By any measure, it sounds like Nokia's starting to get the hint -- but it's still anyone's guess what kinds of products will ultimately see out of these guys over the next 12 to 18 months.

It's been awhile since we heard anything from Sensitive Objects, the French firm that developed Anywhere Multitouch, the platform that uses piezoelectric sensors to extend touch sensitivity beyond the display to the entire device. Well, we thought it was a pretty sweet idea -- and apparently Motorola did as well. According some spicy and exotic PR, Moto's investing some of its hard-earned cash in the company, which began as a project by the French Science National Research Center. As Reese Schroeder, managing director of Motorola Ventures, put it: "Natural user interface (NUI) and in particular interacting with a device through touch is an area of rapid development and great excitement. Sensitive Object provides an innovative and unique approach allowing new ways of interaction. We're most excited to be involved in their growth and success." One has to wonder what kind of new and innovative handset interfaces are coming around the bend -- and one has to wonder what kind of havoc it will cause when you put one of these "anywhere multitouch" phones in your pocket without locking it first. Luckily, the technology is said to be cheaper to implement than the other touchscreen solutions currently available -- so if these guys get their way, we might be accidentally calling our ex-girlfriends with the whole device very soon indeed. PR after the break.

We've heard rumors in the past that Sprint is looking to replace its Lotus with an upgraded model, a testament to the fact that the bizarre mega-wide form factor must be doing relatively well at retail. And how, exactly, do you outdo a phone like the Lotus? One obvious answer is to add a huge display on the front, which is what the upcoming LX610 seems to be doing if the shots over on PhoneArena are legit. Without any obvious input method, we're not sure what good a big external display (QVGA, if we had to guess) does -- but then again, it sorta worked for the RAZR 2, so we suppose it could work here, too. Anyhow, time to start taking bets on the third-generation model -- twice as wide and a Dvorak keyboard layout is our best guess.