The rumored i740 slider from Samsung has now been announced, and as expected, it’s a 3G-free beast. That’s actually pretty cool since it’ll do its part toward keeping the sticker shock to an absolute minimum — around €300 ($469) when it launches in October — though it’s a tougher pill to swallow when you consider that it also lacks WiFi. In other words, buyers should expect to use this Windows Mobile 6.1 bad boy as a slave to ActiveSync with the occasional jaunt over EDGE for email (text only, of course) or Internet Explorer Mobile if you’re trying to teach yourself some sort of sick lesson. On the flipside, it’ll do GPS and feature a decent 3.2 megapixel cam plus an FM radio. You know, the kind of radio people used before they had 3G to stream it over the ‘net.

AT&T appears to be fiddling around with its online store pages for this one, because we’re not finding it outside of the business-to-business at the moment. Do we care, though? Do you? The SGH-a227 from Samsung is about as basic an offering as you’re going to find on American Telephone & Telegraph at the moment, serving up a hot pile of EDGE data, 160 x 128 internal and 96 x 96 monochrome external displays, and a speakerphone. That’s it — no camera, no crazy haptics, and at $9.99 on contract, virtually no expense. Sammy throws in a true HTML browser, though without 3G, it’s of somewhat limited use. Odds are you can find this one floating aroudn in stores now, otherwise, we’d expect it to be back on AT&T’s main site in the not-too-distant future.

Samsung UK outpost has sounded the alarm that the all-business i200 candybar imbued with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Edition is now available at retail. Though not ugly, Sammy certainly didn’t put much effort into making this one beautiful — hence our “all-business” tag — and the 3.6Mbps HSDPA 2100 should go a long way toward putting it in the breast pockets of a few three-piece suits out there. Interested parties should expect to shell out about €399 ($626) when they go seeking it out.

Mossy dont like it, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt put finger to screen and give Samsung’s new Instinct a test of your own. Particularly if you’re a fan of Sprint either by choice or by contract. Available now and right on schedule for $129.99 (with 2 year contract and $100 mail-in rebate), not the original $200 bounced around initially. With Sprint trying hard to position the Instinct as an iPhone killer, we guess they really didn’t have a choice but to undercut it in price.

Throw this one in your ‘hopes and dreams’ stack friends, but the web’s buzzing with rumors of the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional-powered Samsung i788 as AT&T’s BlackJack 3. This new and freshly rumored device apparently will pack the 3G frequencies that the Samsung i780 doesn’t have, stylus, optical touchpad, WiFi, HSDPA, GPS, and almost certainly be devoid of any type of forward-facing camera. Of course, all this is guesswork, and features could disappear — bye bye, WiFi, GPS? — or be added if and when it comes to market. Here’s to more of the same, AT&T!

One of Samsung worst kept secrets (if we can even call it that) has finally been “announced” by the company, and we’re guessing the timing here isn’t coincidental. Nevertheless, the Windows Mobile 6.1-powered i900 Omnia features quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE support, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a built-in accelerometer, WiFi module, USB port, FM tuner, Bluetooth, 3.2-inch 400 x 240 resolution display and a 5-megapixel camera (with smile detection and geotagging). An 8GB and 16GB version will soon be available, and prospective buyers can expect to see Sammy’s own TouchWiz user interface loaded on. Reportedly, the handset will be available later this month in undisclosed areas of the globe (probably after being showcased at CommunicAsia), while Europe is expected to see it in July. Hands-on photos await you in the read link.

One of the worst-kept secrets in Verizon stable is finally getting official today; thats right, ladies and gentlemen, meet the Glyde from Samsung. Wearing CDMA guts underneath its F700 clothing, the fashion-friendly QWERTY slider offers a 2 megapixel cam with flash and autofocus, GPS, the full range of Bluetooth profiles, microSD slot, and a true HTML browser. Unlike its crosstown competition — (more…)

While some manufacturers stay home pouting about mobile TV slow uptake in Europe, Samsung isn’t giving up on the Euro DVB-H market just yet, hoping to entice viewers with better features. The company’s new SGH-P960 adds integrated DVR functionality, like pausing live TV when it rings, meaning you won’t miss any of the action on the slider’s 2.6-inch, 240 x 320 screen. Other TV niceties include picture-in-picture, (more…)

Thanks to a few BlackBerrys, we can keep our standard “there arent any HotSpot@Home - compatible smartphones” argument to a minimum here, but still — you’ve gotta admit that T-Mobile’s seriously going overboard with the midrange WiFi handsets. It looks like the upcoming t339 flip will be yet another, thanks to FCC documentation showing the presence of 802.11 aboard its thin, brownish shell. For what it’s worth, this could end up being the sexiest HotSpot@Home dumbphone yet (we’re not huge fans of the Katalyst’s look, we admit), but still, guys, give us an N95 or something. Please. No release date here yet, but we’ll keep y’all in the loop.

As planned, Vodafone has launched the Samsung F490 - you know, that full-screen touch piece for those of you that find themselves without need of the QWERTY keyboard afforded by the F700. The virtually button-free phone offers pretty much every feature a modern mobile warrior could be looking for — save a smartphone operating system — with a 5 megapixel camera, HSDPA, stereo Bluetooth, microSD slot, and (more…)

As cool as the concept of the Samsung DuoS D880 might be, there’s a big problem: it runs in the $700 range at retail. Russian site Smape recently sat down with Samsung’s mobile chief for the region, and he plainly admitted that the high cost of the D880’s admission is leaving out a large segment of the dual-SIM market — folks who are looking to minimize costs by using different providers depending on who they’re calling — and the company’s looking to address that in the second quarter by adding another DuoS model, the P240 candybar. The new piece is expected to cost 20 to 30 percent less than the D880 while still offering its most important feature — the two SIM slots, that is — along with Bluetooth, a microSD slot, and a 220 x 176 display. The rep also mentioned that a WinMo-powered DuoS is in the works for this year, and Symbian’s on their radar as well — though probably not before 2008’s out. Samsung had previously shown a DuoS-based version of the Armani, too, but it looks like that’s now off the table because they found that managing two SIMs proved difficult with a touchscreen; we personally think we could’ve managed, but whatevs.

Well, would you look at this? Not quite a year after we got some pretty strong whiffs of the SGH-F110 fitness phone, the rumor has at long last become a reality. Heck, even the model name stayed the same. Slated to launch in the UK next month, the Samsung / Adidas F110 (miCoach) is out to take on the mighty Nike+ training system, and besides the obligatory heartbeat monitor and step counter, the handset also boasts a built-in MP3 player / FM tuner, two-inch LCD and a two-megapixel camera. Additionally, the currently unpriced phone will chime in when you’re not running hard enough, but feel free to drown it out with jams packed on the 1GB of internal memory.