Microsoft's been pretty cagey with the future of Windows Mobile so far, but apparently the Office Mobile 2010 team just doesn't care -- in addition to leaking a new interface in that confidential slide deck last month, they've now included this screen shot on the Office Mobile 2010 beta website. Here's what's wild: this design language completely matches the first set of Windows Mobile 7 leaks we saw nearly two years ago, so either Microsoft hasn't made any changes in that time, or what we're seeing here is something else entirely. Combine that with rumors that WinMo 7 isn't due to hit until the end of next year, and we're starting to think there's something bigger afoot here -- the only other alternative is that Microsoft has waited nearly three years to launch what's little more than a refresh of its current interface, and even Redmond can't be that slow to execute... can it?

[Via IntoMobile]

Boy, we sure do love our early glimpses of pre-release hardware, and today we have not one, but two sources of purported pictures of the Sony Ericsson Kurara. Touted as a sibling to the Satio, the Kurara is mooted to have a 3.5-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen, 8.1 megapixel camera and, wait for it, 720p video recording. The image above seems to confirm this with a big "HD" inscription next to the camera lens, but that label is missing in the gallery below. We'll just put that inconsistency down to the extremely early samples on show, and start getting all frothed up in excitement over the possible UX inclusion on this Symbian S60 device when it starts selling in the first half of 2010.

[Via My Sony Ericsson and SlashPhone]

Read - PhonesDB
Read - Sony Ericsson Club

Like it or not, we've got it on pretty reasonable authority that HTC's first "DROID" phone is nothing more than a rebadged, shape-shifted Hero (something we've been hearing for a while now), and that it'll be launching on Verizon on November 6th, the same day as Motorola's DROID. That means Android 1.5 "Cupcake," Sense UI, 3.2-inch screen, 528MHz processor and so forth. The Eris will retail for $199 but with a $100 mail-in rebate. It'll pack in an 8GB microSD card and the hopes and dreams of a generation of cheapskates that will be hopin' and prayin' that HTC manages to push Android 2.0 onto this thing so they don't look too bad in front of their DROID-toting buddies on Verizon.

[Thanks, anonymous]

Again, we have no idea why Verizon is burying the launch of the HTC Droid Eris alongside the Motorola Droid tomorrow (well, apart from the slow CPU and older Android build) but if you had any doubts that Big Red was going to launch this riff on the Hero, well, these screenshots of the employee training course should put those to rest. Interestingly, the buttons and logo placement are slightly different from the pic that was leaked to gdgt, but this version certainly looks like what Eric Schmidt was holding the other day, so we're thinking this is the final iteration. We'll see what's what tomorrow, we suppose.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Well, hello there! Those Dell MID rumors we've been hearing have finally received vindication in the form of a nice, picture-heavy leak courtesy of some industrious folks in Vietnam. What we know as of now is that there's an 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen display (with multitouch zooming), WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G WWAN connectivity, all riding atop an Android 2.0 (aka, Donut Eclair) install. A dual-LED flash 5 megapixel camera adorns the back, and there's a 1,300mAh battery to power all that goodness. See pics below and a video awaits after the break, where an old friend of ours plays with the jumbo smartphone.

[Via SlashGear; Thanks, Nicky N.]

In an almost perfect world, this spy shot would be of the rumored HTC Dragon, reminiscent of the HD2 with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and packing the latest version of Android / Sense UI -- in a more perfect world, this would all have been confirmed last week and in our hands today delivered via unicorn express, but that's obviously not happening. Still, there's something new and exciting about this device, but we're grasping at straws beyond the handful of pics The Unlockr managed to obtain, several more of which can found just beyond the read link.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Still no confirmation on any all-you-can-eat data plans, but Boy Genius Report has some convincing screens that seem to reveal some other precepts of T-Mobile's enigmatic (and purportedly company-saving) Project Dark. Two new plans have emerged, Even More and Even More Plus. The former is the traditional two-year contract, along with options to do data only and get a subsidized phone. Even More Plus doesn't require a contract, going month-to-monthly instead, and subsequently the phone is full price. However, what's gonna be interesting to see is the FlexPay option, which allows you to pay for a device in monthly installments instead of upfront, a plan we've seen before in markets like Germany and Japan. In the example above, a $400 G1 on the non-contractual Even More Plus plan is divvied out to an initial $170 payment and 19 subsequent installments of $12.10, or $33.33 over three months after the related upfront cost. It's no game-changer on its own, but it's certainly an intriguing prospect that's gonna make some (initially) cash-strapped individuals very happy to be able to walk out with a decent Android device.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Though nothing's been announced, betting against a GSM version of the Palm Pixi would be a foolish move. There's certainly no mistaking that "E" for Edge logo and SIM slot beneath the battery in these leaked images from Vietnam (yes, again). Oddly, this particular GSM variant pictured only contains 4GB of internal storage vs. the 8GB model announced for Sprint. Perhaps a prototype limitation only? Let's hope.

Surely you're not tired of seeing the BlackBerry Bold 9700 yet are you. A handset described as "the most gorgeous BlackBerry on the planet" in early previews deserves a few more minutes in the spotlight, be it official or not. Vietnamese site tinh te returns with some of the best leaked shots and video we've seen to date giving us a crystal clear look at the 9700's orange AT&T splash-screen, real pleather battery cover, and squircle trackpad. They've also taken the time to size it up appropriately with previous gen BlackBerries for your comparison kicks. Video after the break, more images just beyond the read link.

[Thanks, Nam N]

We're not expecting the BlackBerry Onyx to hit before November, but at least a few units have hit the wild, and these are the first in-depth photos we've seen. These shots don't reveal much about the new-look Bold with the optical trackball, but it sure is pretty, ain't it? Now if it only had a useful browser and IMAP support, we'd actually care.

[Thanks, Zero]

Will Verizon release an official update to 5.0 for the current generation of the Storm? Maybe -- it's a total crap shoot -- but even if they do, your children's children could be having midlife crises before it's actually released considering the glacial pace that Verizon typically gets new hardware and software to market. Of course, that's partly thanks to an infamously back-breaking testing regimen that helps Verizon consistently earn high marks for network quality and generally keeps customers off the support lines, but for those of us who want nothing more than to live on the edge, it's good to see that another packaged 5.0 update for the 9530 has hit the wires -- this one versioned 5.0.0.230. We imagine this one's leaps and bounds more stable than the nearly unusable stuff from earlier this summer, and initial reports from users seems to indicate as much -- the camera works (always a good thing) and there seem to be countless minor tweaks and fixes that folks are describing as "promising." As always, your average BlackBerry user who relies on the phone day in and day out might want to wait for something a little less leaky -- but like we said, it could be a bit of a wait.

The HTC Leo has already got hearts-aflutter the world over with its high-end spec sheet and huge capacitive touchscreen, but now that some early benchmarks have hit we might have a full-on fanboy panic on our hands. That 1GHz Snapdragon processor isn't just for show, people -- you're looking at least a 300 percent improvement over the Touch HD on every single 3D graphics benchmark with an astounding 1,822 percent improvement on one test, and raw CPU performance was nearly three times as fast. Yeah, those are some wild numbers -- we'll have to see what battery life is like when this thing ships, but for now we'd recommend hitting the read link and taking in the full set of benchmarks.

We'd heard that Archos had teased an Android-based phone when it launched the new Archos 5 Internet Tablet, and now we have video proof. We don't speak French well enough to translate what's being said here (or, really, translate anything other than "le singe conduit l'autobus") but that spec sheet isn't too hard to figure out: we're looking at a 1GHz ARM Cortex processor under a 4.3-inch 854 x 480 screen in 10mm thin titanium casing with what looks like a front-facing camera. Yeah, not too shabby at all, especially considering Archos has that interesting media layer running on top of Android already -- let's hope we find out even more soon. Video after the break.

[Thanks, Fernando]