The N85 at retail in October? Yeah, sounds totally believable, especially considering that an October release would give the populace enough time to wrangle one for the holidays, the fact that Nokia's known to be revealing two hotties this month, and that the date comes from none other than Mobile-review's scoop-tastic Eldar Murtazin. A graphic scored by Murtazin has the N85 and the just-announced Carbon Arte variant of the 8800 series both slated for grand entrances in the tenth month of the year. One, we stand a fighting chance of affording; the other, just like the Artes of old, probably not.

[Via Mobile Phone Helpdesk]

No longer does Windows Mobile alone a capable smartphone make. The platform's core is as relevant, powerful, and well-supported as ever, but that's not the problem -- the real issue is that it's just plain hard to look at. The days of WinMo looking even remotely modern in its stock form are long gone, and top-tier manufacturers clearly recognize that; everyone from ASUS to HTC has taken matters into their own hands to craft custom skins that kill off as many of the ancient visuals as possible while still holding onto everything that makes Windows Mobile great.

Enter the Samsung i900 Omnia, a phone that submits to design direction forced upon the industry largely by the iPhone -- full touchscreen, no keyboard, you know the drill by now -- and does pretty much everything in its power to overcome WinMo's limitations to make it competitive in the year 2008. Did Sammy succeed? Read on.

Thanks to the good folks at Wireless Imports for the hookup!

The Windows Mobilicious i900 Omnia from Samsung definitely qualifies for the upper echelon of 2008's crop of smartphones, thanks in no small part to a 5 megapixel cam, capacitive touchscreen, and a UI that seems to do a bang-up job of concealing WinMo's ancient visuals. That's all well and good, but most of us don't live in a locale where the Omnia has launched on a carrier -- which is precisely why we should all be nice and jealous of our British friends righ about now. It seems the 16GB handset is now available through O2 over in those parts, and what's more, it's straight-up free if you sign up for a £35 (about $65) plan. Hey, American carriers, you guys paying attention here?

We can think of about fifteen plain-vanilla EDGE flips from Samsung that we'd expect T-Mobile to launch ahead of something like this, but you're definitely not going to see us complaining. TmoNews is claiming that the guys and gals in pink magenta have an ace up their collective sleeve in the form of Samsung's F480 Tocco -- or really, an Americanized version of it dubbed T919. Naturally, the US version goes through the usual dilution, losing the front-facing cam -- but on the upside, it manages to hang on to the really important stuff like a 3G radio (AWS, we'd assume), GPS, and 5 megapixel cam. There's no telling when it'll be on sale, but if we know our carriers -- and we think we know 'em pretty well -- they'll want it on store shelves in plenty of time for the holiday season.

The dam has been breached, and now there seems to be no stopping the internet at large as every little nook and cranny of the Treo Pro is exposed and explored. TreoCentral member scottymomo has fleshed out a few more details on the device, and dug up that Comm Manager shot up above. Details include:

• HTC task manager.
• Comm Manager's Airplane Mode and other assorted easily switched options.
• MicroSD (up to 32GB supported) isn't under the battery, but you do have to take off the battery cover to access.
• 1500mh battery.
• Other stuff.

It's all very exciting, we assure you, but you can explore the shots for yourself if you're really feeling hard up for Treo Pro infos. Oh, while we're thinking about it: sexiest Treo yet, or disastrous usage of phone face real estate? Both?

[Via Palm Infocenter]

We were personally pulling for the "Full Tilt," but WMExperts is citing a tipster that claims AT&T's rendition of the HTC Touch Pro will end up seeing the light of day as the "Fuze." That name would certainly make sense, because, you know, "Fuze" is a word that evokes ultimate productivity without sacrificing the hip style that today's young mobile professional demands. Whoa, did we just channel a marketing guru, or what? The tip goes on to say that we can expect the QWERTY slider to hit "sooner rather than later," so you might want to hold off on that imminent Tilt purchase if you can help it.

[Thanks, Malatesta]

In case there was any lingering doubt that the Treo Pro (alias Treo 850) was real -- and there probably shouldn't be, considering it got snapped all the way back in May -- this round of non-blurry (dare we say artistic?) shots should pretty much seal the deal. The glossy shell, promise of a 320 x 320 display, and a general acknowledgment of circa-2008 industrial design definitely have us feeling just a little less pessimistic about Palm's prospects right now; if anything, it makes us wish they had some Android kit up their sleeves rather than slaving away on the thus-far vaporware Palm OS 2. As WinMo goodies go, though, this thing looks like it's ready to hang with the best of the best -- so bring it on, Palm. A legion of fans with well-worn 750s awaits you. In the meanwhile, check another shot after the break.

[Via WMExperts]

A little easier on the pocketbook than the nearly $600 Movistar's asking for in Chile? Yeah, we'd say so. The BlackBerry Bold has now launched on KPN in the Netherlands, where it apparently takes nothing more than a €36.25 per month (about $54) plan on a two-year agreement to skirt any and all charges for the handset itself. Heck, even on a mere €26.75 monthly deal, you're still only shelling out €99.95 for the phone, which works out to something like $148 -- dirt cheap for a phone of the Bold's capability. AT&T's pricing on the other hand... well, we really don't know yet what they plan on charging for the pleasure, but something tells us we're going to need a Heineken or three to get over the sticker shock. A trip to Amsterdam wouldn't hurt, either, come to think of it.

[Thanks, hellejoep]

If you dig the slider form factor and the trick OLED d-pad, you've got no need for a super high-res cam, and you're alright with download speeds that are merely blazingly fast (as opposed to super crazy blazin' fast), look no further than Samsung's modest update to the Soul. The new model, dubbed S7330 according to Mobilmania, looks to carry over most of the original model's headlining features while knocking the photographic prowess down a notch from 5 to 3.2 megapixels and dropping peak HSDPA speeds from 7.2 to 3.6Mbps. In return, though, you score an updated user interface and pick up GSM 850, so it's not all bad. Rumor has it it'll run for about 8,000 Czech crowns ($500) later this year.

[Via Unwired View]

If you're fortunate enough to have access to a Premier (business, that is) account with AT&T, you're now able to forgo the charade of meandering down to your local store to buy -- or place an order for, more likely -- the iPhone 3G. All three varieties of the best cellphone Apple makes are now available directly through the carrier's B2B online store for the usual $199 / $299 pricing scale; if we had to guess, it's just a matter of time before they'll throw the doors open to the riff raff (read: us), too. We'll drink to that.

[Thanks, Vasudev R.]

Update: We touched base with AT&T, and it looks like the real news here is that Premier account holders who pay their own bills now have access to the iPhone 3G online, whereas before, only those whose bills were covered by their companies had access. The more, the merrier!

Though it won't have the pleasure of being the first carrier on planet Earth to offer up the BlackBerry Bold, Orange will be the first provider in the UK to do so. Reportedly, the handset will be available for purchase on August 16th, a few weeks earlier than T-Mobile's purported September launch. We're told that the unit will likely be free on contract, but buyers will be politely forced to sign an 18-month agreement and hand over £45 per month (for unlimited data?). Just a few more long, painful days to wait.

Softbank can safely say it has a pretty decent quarter here recently, but compared to NTT DoCoMo, it's looking weak. The exclusive iPhone 3G carrier in Japan has decided to answer outcries of "too expensive!" by lowering the minimum monthly data charge that each iPhone 3G user must pay. Previously, users were forced to hand over ¥5,985 ($55) per month for unlimited data; now, users can pay just ¥1,695 ($16) per month to cover 20,175 packets of data "after which users will pay per-packet until 71,250 packets, at which time the previous ¥5,985 charge is reached and further data use is not charged." In semi-related news, the carrier has also announced that it will begin taking reservations for the handset, so yeah, there's that.

Vodafone expected the Touch Pro to touch down in the UK this month, and sure enough, said expectation has become a reality. HTC's mighty WinMo-powered smartphone is now available from official UK distributor devicewire, and if you just so happen to use pounds as your primary currency, you can claim one of your own for the eye-popping price of £514.99 (including VAT). We won't bother converting that into dollars -- trust us, you're better off pretending you don't know.

[Via coolsmartphone]

In this culture of instant gratification, it's comforting to know that there's at least one source out there for Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 well ahead of the official release. An eBay auction expiring this Saturday is offering up (or claiming to, anyway) the opportunity to be the first kid on your block with that sleek, sexy bundle of metal and Windows Mobile -- if, of course, the price is right. It looks like a sale price well above $1,000 is a foregone conclusion at this point, and there's no guarantee that the auction is even legit, so you'd better really want an X1 more than the next guy before plunking down that kind of cash for a prototype. We'll wait, thanks -- not because we're patient, but because we're not old money. Now excuse us while we go sob quietly to ourselves in that corner over there, okay?

[Thanks, ginger.al]

Okay, so officially, there's no such thing as a Touch Diamond that can hang on 850 or 1900MHz HSDPA networks -- key word there being "officially." The FCC knows better than that, and at least one eBayer looking for a little extra spending cash seems to as well. A fellow with a so-so 92.9 percent feedback rating claims to have the most elusive of Touch Diamond models in his possession, but wants to sell it and wait for the Touch Pro instead (can't say we blame him). Of course, from his perspective, it also helps that this thing is worth many times what it'll be worth in a few weeks, months, or years -- whenever it is that someone gets around to releasing this puppy in a slightly more official capacity. As always, caveat emptor in these sorts of situations.

[Thanks, Moe]