You know the deal by now: we grab a slab of fresh new hardware, fiddle, play, and tinker with it until exhaustion or boredom is reached, then wax poetic about the whole experience, with a side serving of pictures and videos thrown in. Today's candidate for a grilling is LG's BL40, which is now available in Europe. You'll be familiar with it already from our hands-on look last month, but do join us past the break where we explore what's under the glossy hood in more detail, and give you a definitive answer on just how useful that elongated screen really is.

Where we come from, microSD to USB adapters are free pack-ins with our memory cards, and video stands for our phones -- on the ultra-rare occasions that we feel the need for such functionality -- are MacGyvered out of whatever odds and ends we happen to have in the vicinity. It doesn't take a lot of technology to keep a phone from falling over, after all. Alas, Sony Ericsson has stumbled upon a great way to relieve you of a few dollars with its fancily-named IM920 Video Viewing Stand, a product which does nothing more than integrate those two functions into a single 13-cent piece of black plastic. The best part, though, is that it can't even do that well -- it appears from the company's press shot here that you've got to split the "stand" duties between the IM920 and the Satio's port connector. In case you're feeling any uncontrollable desire to burn cash on this finely-crafted gizmo, allow us to help you: it's expected to be available "within 6 months," so you've got some time to cool off.

Okay, so maybe it's just a microSD-equipped smartphone's best friend, but you get the idea. Unlike traditional [insert flash format here]-to-USB adapters, Elan's Mobidapter provides a direct bridge from your microSD slot to your external USB hard drive. The result? Dead simple phone backups and file transfers, all without the use of a PC in the middle. Elan asserts that the currently unpriced device will begin shipping in mid-June, and if you're still baffled about how this thing operates, check the yawn-inducing demonstration vid after the break.

Finally someone has combined the two things we love most -- Bluetooth headsets and microSD storage -- into one, sweet package. Enter the Bluetrek Bizz, a marriage of seemingly disparate products that actually kind of makes sense. On the headset side, you get up to seven hours of talk time, ten days on standby, and a customizable color panel. When you crack it open, you've got direct USB 2.0 connectivity, as well as a slot for a microSD card up to 8GB. You can charge the headset directly from any USB port, thus making your efforts to keep it at the ready a little bit easier. The headset weighs around 10 grams, and is slated in sell for around £40 (or roughly $80). Check out the totally jazzed-up video after the break to see what it's all about.


[Via Mobility Site]

Several months and a few in the wild pics later, Verizon Wireless has gotten around to launching its latest Windows Mobile Professional device, the Samsung i760. Weighing in just under 5.3 ounces and measuring in at 2.28 x 4.49 x 0.77 inches, it's one of the more compact PDAs available for the carrier. The i760 is packed with features like a 2.8 inch touchscreen LCD, 128MB of RAM and 64 MB of ROM, an EV-DO radio (sorry, no Rev. A here), Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi connectivity, microSD expandable memory, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. Enough with all this chit chat, though -- how's about some pics?

Not wanting be outdone by its rival -- Telus Mobility -- could Rogers Wireless be planning to launch the HTC Touch? Signs are starting to point to yes with internet ads begin to pop up depicting an upcoming launch for the Canadian carrier. Just in case you've been in hiding for the last six months, we'll run down the specs again: Windows Mobile 6 Professional combined with HTC's TouchFlo interface, 2 megapixel shooter with expandable memory via microSD, 128MB of ROM and 64MB of RAM, and Bluetooth 2.0 rounding out the feature set. 'Course, the original Touch can't take advantage of Rogers' just-launched 3G network, but hey, it's still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Now here's a possible camera replacement we'll keep in mind for our next trip to Korea. Dressed up with Anycall branding, Samsung's SCH-W380 comes fully equipped with a 5 megapixel shooter complete with autofocus on the back and a VGA camera in the front for video calling. The clamshell also sports a triband 900 / 1800 / 1900 GSM radio with HSDPA, MP3 player and expandable memory via microSD. We wouldn't hold our breath for this device to come stateside, so it's an awfully good thing we have a couple of 5 megapixel options of our own 'round here these days.

Garmin -- your favorite GPS team ever -- are about to drop some serious map-styles all over your mobile phone. The company today announced a new set of microSD cards preloaded with its navigation software and standard maps of the US or Europe. The cards will turn your average, boring, ugly phone into a bona fide GPS superstar. Dubbed the Garmin Mobile XT, the card will tout all of the features of a typical hardware Garmin GPS unit, like turn-by-turn directions, route planning, and voice prompts. Additionally, the card provides access to the GPS-maker's online service, which lets you get real-time fuel prices, traffic reports, and weather updates. We know, you're thinking all of this sweet and easy action is going to cost you an arm, leg and first-born... but you're wrong. The company is offering the card right now for the painfully affordable price of $99, with no monthly fees or other costs, thus making this purchase seem attractive even if you don't really need it.

At first glance, we're not sure whether CECT designed its cell phone around an Olympic mascot or some sort of cellular voodoo doll. Apparently inspired by 2008 Beijing Olympics mascot Fuwa Huanhuan, the kid-friendly candybar rocks a 1.5 inch screen, 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expandable memory with a 256MB card, media player, and the requisite assortment of Olympic ringtones, wallpaper, and screen savers. The device will be a Chinese market exclusive, so we can see it being branded as an Olympic collectible and ending up on eBay for enormous amounts of money -- or peanuts. Hard to say.

[Via Newlaunches]

With all the hype about built around the Motorola V9m, we thought it only right to add some more fuel to the fire. One of our old pals hooked us up with some marketing pics of the V9m for Verizon Wireless in all its slender glory. The two-tone V9m to sports a upgraded 2.0 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and expandable memory via microSD. Check out the additional pictures in the gallery!

[Thanks, HTC Kid]

Even though it just became available for consumers, Verizon has had its latest 'Berry available to business customers for some time now. Thanks to our favorite parcel carrier, we're able to bring to you The Network's latest pony into the BlackBerry stable, the 8830. Now even though this is a dual band 800 / 1900 CDMA device with a splash of 900 / 1800 GSM designed for international roaming, we think this device could be a big hit for most BlackBerry customers of Verizon even if they aren't travelers -- read on to find out why.

Wow, it seems like we were just marveling over the introduction of the world's first 8GB SD card a few moons back. Ah, that's right, we were. Alas, Samsung took it to heart that SD doesn't cut it for your average cellphone (they run a bumpin' mobile business, after all), announcing that it has managed to pack a full eight gigabytes into the microSD form factor for mid-2008 production. That's particularly timely considering that 4GB examples haven't even gotten into widespread circulation yet -- "8GB" just has a nicer ring to it -- not to mention that the new card handily surpasses SDHC guidelines with 16MB/s reads and 6MB/s writes. For the record, a microSD card rocks a little over 20 percent of the surface area of its SD counterpart, so does this mean we can expect 40GB SD cards, like, now? Not quite.

Apparently, HTC's P3300 Artemis microSD-handling capabilities fall well short of its ability to look good (yeah, it's hot -- this one definitely left a lasting impression on us when we saw it at last year's Fall CTIA). Users have been reporting a variety of issues with the P3300's slot, ranging from an inability to correctly read directory structures on expansion cards all the way to data corruption. Help's on the way, though, in the form of a freshly-released update straight from HTC itself that should clear those pesky microSD woes right up. If you're into trackballs, navigation, and a Palm V-esque form factor, you probably own one of these things, so go patch 'er up, will ya?

[Via the::unwired]