Though both have had less-than-official upgrades floating around for ages, Sprint and HTC have finally seen fit to bless the Touch and Mogul with the real deal. In the case of the Touch, the Windows Mobile 6.1 update includes Sprint Navigation, EV-DO Rev. A, integrated Opera, and a new on-screen QWERTY keyboard, so it seems more than worth the few minutes you'll spend downloading it and getting it all going. The Mogul gets Sprint TV (yay?), but unfortunately, no patch to magically morph it into a Touch Pro. Seriously, we'd pay good money for that.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]

Update: It looks like they've been pulled for the moment, but keep a keen eye out at HTC's support site -- we're hearing they could show up again next week.

Read - Touch
Read - Mogul

Make us proud, Alltel! The number five carrier's really been going all-out as of late, doing an impressive job of keeping its offerings in line with the big boys -- and in some cases, outdoing 'em with hot exclusives like the Glimmer. Once again, they've gotten the jump on their larger, heavier competition by becoming the first carrier to release a firmware upgrade for the Vogue (the Alltel Touch, in this case) that ups the radio to EV-DO Rev. A speeds. Speedy uploads aside, the upgrade includes some Bluetooth fixes and adds the ability to receive video messages. Sprint, Verizon -- your move.

[Via phoneArena]

Why wait for the Dream when you can get Android all up in your HTC piece today? Numerous efforts over on xda-developers have yielded a high success rate in getting Google's still-young platform working (although the definition of "working" can vary from device to device) on a variety of recent and popular HTC models, so if you dig your hardware but you're ready to give Windows Mobile the boot -- and you like to live on the bleeding edge between functionality and brickage -- give it a shot. Drop us a line if you have a port to add to the list!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read - Kaiser
Read - Vogue, Neon
Read - Polaris

We've gotten the inside track on a few dates on Verizon's radar for the next few months, and it looks like the boys and girls in red are prepping an interesting mix of exclusive and Sprint catch-ups to keep customers fat and happy. As handsets go, the Motorola Q9c is planned for April along with the TouchFLO-powered XV6900, LG enV2, and the CDMA rendition of the BlackBerry Curve (so much for exclusivity clauses on this one, it seems), while the Samsung Glyde is currently slated for late April or early May. Centro fans will be happy to hear that the diminutive Garnet phone will finally hit Verizon following Sprint and AT&T launches in the tail end of May or the beginning of June, followed shortly by the Nokia 6205, which apparently isn't either the 2505 or 7205 unless one of those flips have been renumbered.

As technology goes, Verizon looks to launch EV-DO Rev. A-based push-to-talk services -- Sprint folks will know this as Qualcomm's QChat -- toward the end of May. We've also caught wind of something called "Verizon Hub," which we're told will go head-to-head with T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home service. It's not known whether this'll be a WiFi setup (a la HotSpot@Home) or adopt Sprint's CDMA femtocell strategy, but seeing how Verizon and Sprint seem to be endlessly engaged in a game of cat and mouse, we wouldn't be surprised to see 'em go with femtocells. We don't have a date on Hub just yet, but it's targeting the second half of the year at the earliest.

Update: Commenters are noting that Verizon's do-all FiOS phone bares the "Verizon Hub" name, though it doesn't go head-to-head with HotSpot@Home -- and the Hub we're referring to is showing up on Verizon Wireless roadmaps. Weird. We'll keep a close eye on this one.

We're seeing a serious flow of tips from people upset with supposed performance issues on a good pile of HTC's newest sets. Handsets like the HTC TyTN II, Touch Dual, Touch Cruise, Wings, Titan, Vogue, Libra, and Iris are all apparently affected by underperforming video drivers which in turn slow the device significantly. The list -- and length -- of threads covering this is snow-balling at the well known XDA-Developers forum pages, as is talk of class-action suits. A site has now been set up called HTCClassAction to help people sort through all the buzz and get the nitty gritty details, so hit the read link if you're inspired to learn more. Of course we'll hopefully hear something official from HTC on this in the near term and will be sure to fill you in as we do.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Now that there's a CDMA version of the HTC Touch available, it stands to reason that pretty much every CDMA carrier under the North American sun would have at least a moderate interest in adding it into their mix; after all, it's attractive, it's functional, it's 3G, and what marketing department wouldn't be happy to hear that they've got an iPhone alternative in the lineup? Indeed, we're hearing from multiple tipsters that Alltel's own version of the Touch is poised to launch as soon as the 10th of this month, slotting in alongside the PPC6800 to shore up the regional's WinMo 6 Professional offerings. We'll follow up on this one as soon as we know more.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Yeah, seeing how Alltel's already taking preorders for the darned thing, we'd say it's pretty much a lock. $499.99 off contract, $199.99 on a two-year plan after rebates. Thanks, everyone!

We'll admit, when we caught wind that there was a CDMA version of HTC's stylish Touch in the pipe, we were skeptical that it'd be a faithful reproduction. We can't even really put our finger on why, either; we just somehow assume (unfairly so, may we add) that when you take a GSM device and shove it through the CDMA transmogrifier, the phone that comes out the other end is going to be a little thicker, a little less attractive, a little slower, a little harder to use, or some combination of the above. We're delighted to report, though, that the fears are utterly unfounded with this little gem. In fact, if it weren't for the silkscreened Sprint logo front and center, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The similarities carry through to the UI, where the TouchFLO-driven interface gets an ever-so-mild Sprint makeover to add in support for Sprint TV (also, notice how all the icons have a Sprint Yellow hue -- cute). The thing about TouchFLO is that the finger friendliness doesn't go far beyond the home page -- all the standard Windows Mobile apps are here and are designed with a stylus in mind -- and while the stylus is there on the Touch if you need it, we were pleasantly surprised with how accurately we were able to navigate using one hand and a thumb alone. Bottom line: if you liked the original Touch, you'll like Sprint's version, and the addition of 3G certainly doesn't hurt.

Shipment of the HTC Touch line -- which includes the Touch, Touch Slide, and Touch Color -- have bobbled over the one million mark as of mid November. Figures are expected to close out the year at the 1.5 to 1.8 million mark, and considering how many launches are happening almost at once, we're believing it. Congrats HTC, five months on and the little Touch that could seems to be hitting some pretty sunny numbers. Now how about a QWERTY Touch, perhaps the HTC Twerty, or Qwouch?

Is it safe yet to declare that carriers are looking at finger-friendly touchscreens as The Next Big Thing in wireless? Sprint today has officially announced its HTC Touch, a device codenamed "Vogue" that brings all of the original's unique personality to the world of CDMA (and, thankfully, EV-DO). Besides the touted support for 3G data, features include a 2 megapixel cam, microSD slot with support for up to 4GB of expansion, Windows Mobile 6 Professional with HTC's TouchFLO interface, and comprehensive support for Sprint's media features including Sprint TV and the Sprint Music Store, all packed into a shell measuring 4 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches and weighing in at 4 ounces (trust us, it looks and feels pretty flippin' small). Interested parties don't have terribly long to wait, either -- look for it to start showing up in retail channels November 4 for a penny under $250 on contract with rebates.

What started as a trickle of unofficially official shots from Sprint's Q4 pipeline has suddenly become a deluge. Check the LG Rumor, Touch (aka, Vogue), and Blackberry Pearl 8130 (above) all dressed up with Sprint logos and sales-goon positioning points for a Q4 launch. We already saw Palm's Centro, OQO Model 02, LG Rumor and Touch yucking it up in the wild this morning but this is the first time we've seen the 8130 in Sprint, not Verizon attire. The 8130 sports a GPS receiver but no WiFi like we saw in those RIM slides last month yet still packs all the rest of the EV-DO niceties you'd expect. The Touch is EV-DO revision A upgradeable like we heard while the LG Rumor does it's QWERTY thing for the non-Pro crowd. See for yourself in the gallery below.

[Thanks, Stephen]

Ugh, not more pictures of Palm's Centro, you gasp. Yes... and much more. This time, it's the Centro nuzzled up for some quickie shots with Sprint's Treo 755p and new Vogue (that's, HTC Touch to the rest of the world) and what must be Sprint's take on the new OQO Model 02. A veritable who's who of soon to be launched Sprint handsets. Better yet, our tipster -- contrary to previous reports -- "noticed little to no difference in typing on the QEWRTY with the Centro to the Treo" while noting that the Centro was "much nicer to hold." He also says that the Vogue was running a 400MHz Qualcomm processor (not the standard OMAP 850) with 256MB ROM / 120MB RAM which suffered "no slowdown" even while running 15-20 applications. Check out all the sneaky pictures in the gallery below. Oh, as to the device to the right of the Vogue and below the OQO: that's a mystery, any ideas?

Update: That other handset turns out to be the LG Rumor, which looks to be positioned for the Facebook and MySpace messaging crowd. More on this later.

[Thanks, Catharsis]

Following a thorough run-through of Verizon's plans for the rest of the year, this broader peep into Sprint's near future than we've seen before -- if real, anyway -- means that we now pretty much know everything there is to know about the wide world of CDMA here in the States for the next few months. It's a warm, fuzzy feeling, ain't it? Anyway, let's have a look: Palm is said to come swinging in with two, the 500 on the low end with a $99 price point on October 14 and an 800w ("w" stands for Windows Mobile 6 here, friends) up top -- though the latter doesn't grace shelves until Q1 of '08. Novatel gets down with an updated version of the U720 dubbed U727 (what else?) come September 30. Sanyo meanwhile should add the S1 candybar to replace the SCP-4930 on October 14, but November 4 is allegedly when things really start to heat up. That day should bring the LG LX260, RIM BlackBerry Pearl 2, HTC Vogue, and the UTStarcom PX-00, a low-cost Rev A data card to replace the PX-500. The Motorola Q9c -- possibly with GSM international roaming -- should drop by a little later in November, while a dual-mode CDMA / GSM rendition of the Samsung BlackJack replaces the IP-830w early next year. Again, this is all unconfirmed, but it seems plausible enough. We'll throw up any corroborating info as we get it.

[Via Slashphone]

Thanks to the characteristically loose-lipped folks at the FCC, it looks like HTC's making good on the rumor that a CDMA rendition of the Touch was in the pipeline. The "Vogue" has just gotten hooked up with regulatory approval, and though the documentation is kept to a bare minimum, we've already heard enough to suspect that Qualcomm's pride and joy (CDMA, that is) will be the lucky recipient of a TouchFLO-enabled handset in the not-too-distant future. Where the Vogue is ultimately headed remains to be seen -- but it could be argued that both Sprint and Verizon are in pretty desperate need of a smartphone lineup overhaul, so by all means, bring it on.