The wait is over, and the leaks turned out to be spot on. The big announcement HTC made today was indeed for the "Diamond".

It’s a GSM 3G phone with Windows Mobile 6.1, VGA screen, touch interface, and automatic screen rotation. It’ll run a touch enabled version of Opera and should be on shelves within a month!

A page full of snazzy video clips of the new device can be found here.

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This, my dear readers, is a leaked photo of what is meant to be the new HTC Diamond. It’s got every single feature you could ever hope for (3G, 3.2MP camera with autofocus, VGA screen, 4Gb memory, QWERTY keyboard and an FM radio. It could possibly be the best phone ever (at least till the next best phone ever).

We’ll know on Tuesday what HTC’s big announcement is, but if this phone is any indication, then it’s going to be a great year for them.

Source: newsmobile.it

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In just a few short years we’ve seen HTC grow from a tiny unknown Taiwanese phone designer into one of the worlds largest developers of smartphones.

HTC design and produce phones like the T-mobile Dash and Wing, the AT&T Tilt and the Sprint Mogul. Almost every major operator in the world has at least one HTC phone in their lineup.

So, when HTC announced that they’d be revealing their newest products on May 6th in London the rumor machine went into full swing.

The top 5 (semi) confirmed rumors at the moment are:

• A phone code named "Diamond" with a VGA screen, multi-touch interface and 3MP camera. Possibly destined for…SPRINT!
• A new lineup of VGA resolution Touch enabled phones
• The presentation of their new "Manila" touch interface
• An update on the "Dream" smartphone running the Google Android OS
• A new version of the HTC TyTN (TyTN III).

The one thing all these new phones seem to have in common is a flush screen, no longer recessed (think iPhone). They may also have orientation sensors (one again, from the iPhone).

Naturally I’ll post more about these new phones when more has been officially revealed.

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Excuse me while I sit here and watch some pigs fly by. Sprint is actually getting a device before any other carrier in the world does. Normally Sprint is about a year behind with their phone lineup (mainly because demands for CDMA phones are not as high as for GSM phones).

But the recently released HTC Shift ultra portable PC is already making its way to Sprint in a CDMA version. Matthew Miller at ZDNet has a full photo review of the device. Of course, in his closing words, he comes to some of the same conclusions as most reviews; crappy battery life, small hard drive and a mediocre screen resolution.

Source: The Mobile Gadgeteer blog

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• GPS is amazing. It picks up 8 satellites in the middle of the house.
• Rev.A EVDO is a little disappointing. Speeds are sometimes even slower than on the old version EVDO Rev.A is much faster IF you change the standard Sprint DNS to something faster (OpenDNS in my case).
• No new exciting applications are included. There is no Sprint TV either, which is quite disappointing.

It took Sprint a lot longer than planned to get this update released, but it’s been worth the wait. Sadly, like with most HTC devices it’ll probably be the last update Mogul users ever see.

The good news is that some developers are already working on a better version of the Sprint update that runs on Windows Mobile 6.1.

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Despite 2007 (and most likely 2008) being the year of the iPhone, some of us are still loyal to Microsoft and the Windows Mobile platform.

The current lineup of Windows Mobile devices are actually pretty good and more reliable than previous generations.

Every operator in the US has at least one Windows Mobile powered device, some even 3 or 4.

Since the first Windows powered phones were released there has always been a way to “tether” them. Tethering essentially turns it into a modem, that allows you to piggyback off your cellular connection using a desktop or laptop computer.

When Windows Mobile 6 was launched, Microsoft decided to upgrade the technology behind “tethering”. They removed the limited modem connection and replaced it with the “Internet Connection Sharing” application (ICS).

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Back in December I wrote an article describing what I consider to be the hot upcoming gadgets for 2008. It’s only the third week of the new year, but we’ve already had CES and Macworld, so let’s take a quick look at any changes to the list.

1 ) Slingcatcher - Sling media (re)announced this device, we first heard of it at the previous CES. At least now we have a price and estimated date of availability; Q2 and $249.99. Nothing has changed when it comes to how excited I am about this product.

2 ) New and improved iPhone - Macworld has come and gone. The announcement of a new software version for the iPhone could possible qualify for the “improved” part of the iPhone, but there were no other exciting announcements. 2008 may or may not be the year we see a 3G iPhone.

4 ) HTC Shift - This week something cool (but boring) happened with the HTC Shift; it finally got its FCC approval. This means it should be on shelves sometime within the next month or two. The FCC documents also revealed the final specifications of this ultra portable. It’ll have a 30Gb hard disk, an 800MHz processor and just 1Gb of memory.

5 ) Ultra portable Apple Macbook - Well, whattayaknow! Pigs do fly. I had given this a 25% chance of actually happening. Welcome Macbook Air, farewell credibility.

8 ) WiMax - Asus and Sprint announced at CES that they are working on a WiMax enabled EEE PC. Oh, and some sites reported on a rumor that Apple would be adding WiMax to all their portables. Turns out that “in the air” referred to number 5 on this list, and not WiMax.

That’s it for the updates to the list. Almost half the products are either already here, or on their way. And we still have 49 weeks to go. It’s going to be a great year for gadget lovers!

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2007 has been a fun year for roadwarriors. In January Steve Jobs introduced us to the iPhone, HTC gave us at least 15 new smart phones and Vista made it onto consumers PC’s (OK, that last one is a joke).

2008 promises to be even better. Here are the 10 gadgets or technologies that we can’t wait to get our hands on in the new year.

In no particular order…

1) The Sling Media Slingcatcher

Sling the other way. When Sling Media gave us the Sling player it was the best thing we travelers had seen since complimentary upgrades. It spelled the end of watching reruns on a 14″ wood grain TV with a poorly working remote (Lodgenet anyone?). But it also meant we had to watch TV on our laptop. The Slingcatcher should change that. Slingcatcher “catches” what your Slingbox “slings”. This means you can watch your Slingbox on a normal TV. In addition to that, it will also let you stream a huge number of different video files AND watch content hooked up to it on a hard disk or USB drive. Of course, none of this matters on the road if your hotel TV does not let you plug anything into it…

When: Expect an announcement at CES in January (around $249)

Why: Keeping up with Family Guy the news when on the road.

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