iSuppli, of all companies -- you know, the teardown people -- is reporting that Nokia has stopped using outside contractors altogether for manufacturing its hardware. Nokia has always had a good deal of in-house manufacturing capability, but certain products -- including its upcoming MID, allegedly -- have been contracted out to ODMs like Foxconn and its contemporaries, so this calls a whole slew of initiatives into question. Notably, many of its recent CDMA devices are made outside of Nokia proper, so we've got to wonder -- does this mean they'll be taking up the slack internally, or is CDMA once again on the outs for these guys? See iSuppli's full press release after the break.

[Image via Unwired View]

Information about Palm's hotly anticipated Pre just keeps slowly trickling out... today, we hear that Taiwanese OEM Chi Mei Communication Systems will have the honor of assembling the smartphones. The company's not one of the largest out there, but it also manufactures phones for Motorola. This info comes to us courtesy of DigiTimes, so make of it what you will, but they also say that production could begin as early as March. Considering that it's March now, well... we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

[Via Brighthand]

We'll be totally honest -- we pretty much blew Ruslan Kogan off when he proclaimed that he was about to push out a $199 Android phone by the year's end. And truthfully, the guy still hasn't totally delivered, but you won't find us kvetching about more Googlephones, regardless of MSRP. The Agora (AU$299; US$192) and Agora Pro (AU$399; US$256) are available for pre-order as we speak, though neither one is scheduled to ship out until the end of January. For those unfamiliar with Kogan, it's an online-only enterprise that has wares built specifically to its dimensions in China, and so far as we can tell, it's as legit as they come. As for specs, the Agora packs a 2.5-inch touchscreen (320 x 240), 3G networking, a backlit QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot; the Pro adds in GPS, 2-megapixel camera and WiFi. So, with unsubsidized prices this low, are you willing to take a chance?

[Via iTWire]

And so, it begins. A young, entrepreneurial Australian apparently thinks he has the chops to assemble an Android-powered handset in just over a month, and better still, he expects to sell it for just $199. Reportedly, this whiz-kid (25-year old Ruslan Kogan) offers up a variety of "Kogan-branded" kit that he has built directly for him in China, and presumably, he's hoping to do the same with a Google-fied cellie. Wondering what it'll look like? "Similar to the iPhone," meaning a touchscreen-based device with WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. In his words: "It's a matter of loading the Android system on to the phone, configuring it, making sure it works very well and then the manufacturing of the few thousands phones that we need to launch it is just a matter of a day or two." Yeah dude, piece of cake.

[Thanks, Nick]

It's no surprise that cameraphones are emerging as some folks' point-and-shoot of choice, and we've already seen LG and Schneider-Kreuznach team up to deliver higher quality shots from your multi-functional mobile, but now HP and Flextronics are trying the knot in order to allow users to capture photos "with the same high quality they achieve from their digital still cameras." The five-year deal gives Flextronics -- makers of Kyocera, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola handsets -- exclusive use of HP's image processing technology in return for an undisclosed royalty. The same technology used in HP's long-standing lineup of Photosmart digicams will soon be hitting the depths of your pocket, and promises to produce "significantly improved results" over current options, delivering shots that are "good enough to print." Although we're not sure if these forthcoming modules can outsnap the 10-megapixel SCH-B600, we're all well aware by now that megapixels aren't everything.

[Via CNET]

It's only rather recently that smartphone manufacturer High Tech Computer Corp. became more than just another obscure OEM making reference devices, and BusinessWeek has an inside look at the factors that propelled HTC from unknown to Microsoft's go-to-guy. HTC was founded in 1997 by a group of refugee engineers from Digital Equipment Corp's Taiwanese subsidiary, and they immediately began to focus their efforts on handheld devices -- more specifically those that run one of the flavors of portable Windows. This early dedication to Microsoft operating systems (HTC was responsible for designing the first iPaqs), along with CEO Peter Chou's renowned attention to detail (he sent the Star Trek back three times before he was satisfied with its features) and the creative rein given to employees (whose titles include "Wizard" of this or "Magician" of that) made the company one of Redmond's favorite hardware partners. And even if HTC isn't yet a household name, investors have most definitely taken notice of its performance: the company's consistent double-digit growth (last year's $356 million in profits were triple the previous year's) have caused its stock to skyrocket more than 1000% since 2003.

[Thanks, Dave Z.]