As far as we can tell, this totally nondescript candybar that just "rocked" the FCC as the C300 from Haier doesn't appear under the official Virgin lineup by any catchy name yet, which would put it solidly in the unreleased, unannounced category. Our normal instinct when that happens is to get excited -- maybe break out the bubbly and celebrate our fascinating find with a night of sinful debauchery -- but in this case, this thing is so positively uninspiring that we're having trouble getting fired up about the ordeal. The phone's ugly (at best) and ultra low-end -- you won't even find a camera on this one -- so we're guessing you'll find this in your local CVS for $20 or so within a few weeks, quite possibly without the fanfare of an official press release. One thing we can say for certain: this won't be a Helio-branded device, if you catch our drift.

Update: Rich over at Phone Scoop points out that the C300 is CDMA800 only, which would seem to preclude it for action on Virgin Mobile USA; makes you wonder why they bothered with an FCC approval then, but who are we to question Haier's wisdom?

Call it off Sony, no need to throw any precious man hours into making your perennially #2 handheld into some sort of amazing featurephone hybrid, some hacker has already done it for you. Through the amazing wonders of modern thinphone technology, soldering irons and probably a bit of glue, some hacker has managed the slap a Haier touchscreen phone onto the back of his PSP -- killing the UMD drive in the process, but we'd say it was well worth it.

We don't know what it is with boutique brands picking up year-old Haiers and passing them off as new wares, but it's a trend that appears to be picking up some steam. Spyker, the Dutch auto manufacturer, got into the phone branding game last year and is set to roll out a pair of new midrange models at CeBIT this week. The first model, LaTurby, has a name that's extremely fun to say (seriously, give it a try) -- but that's about all that's notable about it seeing how it's the Haier Sterling we saw last year with 1GB of internal storage, Bluetooth, and a 2 megapixel cam. The metal MonteCarlo slider looks a bit more interesting -- and more importantly, fresh -- and should have specs roughly in line with its more amusingly-named sib. No word on pricing or availability for these yet, but needless to say, we're thinking they'll be both cheaper and easier to obtain than a Spyker automobile.

So some British outfit is releasing a phone it calls the "Liscio" next month and they're making a pretty big PR stink about it. That's all well and good; we like a good teaser as much as anyone else. There's only one problem, though: from the two extraordinarily artistic shots we've been provided so far, it's pretty plainly obvious that the Liscio is nothing more than the Haier Elegance from, like, 14 months ago. Don't get us wrong, the Elegance is a fine phone and we're happy to see it get rebranded and resold -- but the gig is totally up, guys. Don't bother spending another dime on teaser photography, k?

While devices like the iPhone, the N95, and the RAZR 2 get the lion's share of the spotlight, a variety of less well-known manufacturers plod along in the background, quietly creating a plethora of decent handsets capable of servicing just about every segment of the market. One of those darkhorses is Haier, a company with a pretty sizable device lineup outside the US that, by all appearances, is now gingerly trying its hand at scoring some points with the fickle American consumer base. Its first serious effort was the Elegance -- alias "Black Pearl" -- a tiny, mirrored candybar that left us fairly impressed in our brief time with it earlier this year. Now we're getting a peek at the "Sterling," and while the name has changed, the concept has not.

Way back in January we were able to get our comparatively large palms around Haier's minuscule Elegance, and now the company's latest mirrored handset has gotten official with a pre-order price and release date. The oh-so-shiny Sterling brings back the bling factor in a serious way, and while it may look like there's no external display on this bad boy, we promise it's just an illusion. Underneath the facade resides a 1.8-inch color LCD, 1.3-megapixel camera, a pair of "music puzzle games," support for MP3, WMA, MP4, and AAC files, USB 2.0 connectivity, Bluetooth, 128MB of internal memory, a microSD card slot, and a battery capable of staying alive through three solid hours of yapping. Interestingly, you can plunk down a "non-refundable" deposit of $199 now in order to secure a position in line when it launches worldwide in July, but considering that there's no word on how much extra you will be billed upon shipment, we'd be mighty hesitant to pull the trigger just yet.

[Via I4U, thanks Luigi]

Last time we saw Haier's glossy, submicronic capsule, we'd been tossing around the name "Black Pearl" and lamenting the lack of GSM 850. Well, times change, and so does this phone. Turns out it's officially called the "Elegance" -- which makes more sense, considering the threat of a RIM lawsuit constantly looming over Haier's head otherwise -- but better yet, there's a new variant of the handset that trades tri-band GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 for dual-band 850 / 1900. Granted, you give up a band in the process, but the tweaked model should offer better performance Stateside in return. We were pleasantly surprised both with the Elegance's performance and appearance; sound quality was great for both voice calls and FM radio / MP3 playback, and the OLED display looked fabulous when it appeared from beneath its mirrored confines. Follow the break for more eye candy!

Ridiculously small phones are picking up a good head of steam elsewhere, and Haier thinks that the US might finally be ready to experience that same level of frustration the next time your phone falls out of your pocket and into the couch. The upcoming Black Pearl (not to be confused with the larger, SureTyped, trackballed Pearl) lacks GSM 850, but that's not stopping the company from encouraging folks to pick 'er up unlocked here in the States and operate on GSM 1900 alone. For its 2.24-ounce, 3.5 x 1.25 x .75-inch frame, the lil' candybar packs a fair amount of punch with an MP3 player, FM radio, microSD slot, and OLED display on board. Now we only need to hope RIM doesn't decide the world needs an all-black Pearl, and we'll continue to enjoy the clarity in phone model naming conventions we're so accustomed to.

The recent months have been dark days indeed for the Palm OS, especially for its spiritual successor, codenamed Access Linux Platform (ALP). Palm is letting its license to the oft-delayed OS expire this December, and we haven't heard of too many device manufacturers stepping in its place. The good news is that Access-owned PalmSource hasn't been just sitting around a doing nothing, and they recently hosted a one day mini-conference at LinuxWorld to show off their wares so far. Apparently the core OS is fairly completed, and PalmSource is mainly working on the bundled applications that will ship with the OS. Classic Palm OS emulation is said to work perfectly well, even with the requirement by the OS to scale those 320 x 320 native applications to ALP's preferred QVGA touchscreen resolution. There were plenty of Haier N60 flip-phones on hand running the chosen res, along with a few prototypes with VGA screens and a keyboard -- a good sign of things to come. Unfortunately, the only pics allowed were of the developer tools running a virtualized version of ALP in Ubuntu -- a boon to developers, but no device-based eye candy for us. The biggest enhancement so far is multitasking afforded by the Linux base, though sexy features in the NetFront browser, new HotSync interoperability standards, and a newfound return to Palm OS looks of yore seem quite popular as well. In fact, with the OS's ability to be skinned with SVG graphics, Palm could conceivably make a branded version of the OS that would be quite familiar to old users, and dub it the Palm OS 6 we've always wanted. PalmSource says they're still on track to deliver the OS to licensees at the end of the year, with the first ALP products finally emerging next spring.

[Via Brighthand

Chinese handset manufacturer Haier recently announced that they've selected Philips' Ultra Low Cost (ULC) reference phone design based on the Nexperia 5128 chipset in their bid to get cellphones into the hands of as many of China's 1.5 billion potential customers as possible. The handset itself, the the HG-Z1000, promises 280 hours of standby time and a relatively weak 3 hours talk time. Given its ultra low cost nature, you shouldn't be suprised to learn that it's otherwise pretty short of features, although it does have a vibrating alert, SMS capability, and 16 soft midi ringtones. Haier also seems really intent on the phone's "ultra low cost,"  although they don't say how low that cost will actually be, nor do they give a firm launch date.

[Via Slashphone]

LG's Style-i, the Bluetooth cellphone accessory that took the "hands-free" out "of "hands-free headset," is now available exclusively from Verizon, and for a little cheaper than the $150 we originally reported. As you'll no doubt recall from our original mocking write-up of the Style-i, this Haier P7-lookalike is designed for the same purpose as other Bluetooth headsets -- to let you make calls while your phone is charging or in a bag -- but without the convenience of, you know, freeing up your hands. Actually, LG almost had us sold on this $130 product until we found out that you can't daisy-chain two of them together -- how are you supposed to pick up a call if both your phone and first Style-i are charging simultaneously?

[Thanks, Brett]

We're sure the majority of these devices are tri-band Asian phones, but in the last year Chinese manufacturer Haier has returned triumphantly to CTIA with a veritable cadre of sweet knocks on namebrand cellphones. Take the above W800 rip, the M260, which features 2 megapixel camera, 262k color touch screen, and MiniSD slot. See, sometimes fake can be better than real. Click on for the rest.