Where there's a will, there's a way and these hackers prove it day in and day out. Wouldn't you like to have the latest Crossbow OS instead of waiting around till launch? Well, you won't get the whole OS, but trickin out your current Windows Mobile 5.0 phone to look like the soon-to-be-released doesn't sound too bad either. The latest hack has everything from the welcome screen down to the phone pad to look like Crossbow. As always, be cautious installing the update the let us know how the process goes.

Is your Sprint PPC-6700 or Verizon XV6700 feeling down, running poorly, or are you just sick of the bad performance? Fret not Windows Mobile lovers, hope may be in sight. As both carriers have given up on supporting the device and won't be releasing any updates to correct performance issues, a well-skilled hacker comes in to save the day and release AKU 3.3 for each phone. He's also been working on AKU 3.5 and Crossbow. If anyone is brave enough to install these unsupported updates, drop us a line.

Russian manufacturer Rover Computers recently announced a new Windows Mobile 5.0-based phone to beef up its line up, looking remarkably similar to a certain other Pocket PC phone from another Russian company. Unlike that device, however, the RoverPC G5 appears to be only tri-band GSM (900 / 1800 / 1900MHz), though it adds a GPS receiver to compensate for that shortcoming (it's not clear if that's actually integrated or just an add-on). Apart from that, the G5's specs appear to be identical to its Pocket PC doppelganger, with a 2.7-inch screen, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, IrDA, and WiFi, an FM tuner, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, and a microSD slot for additional storage. There doesn't appear to be any word on price or availability, although those more fluent in Russian than us may have better luck finding out than we did.

[Via Mobilewhack]

Mercora has joined the burgeoning mobile music fray in what looks to be a fairly big way today, launching its minimally-named "M" service for Windows Mobile 5.0-based devices. Unlike other mobile music services, which'll sell you songs or streaming radio, M gives you over-the-air access to your existing music library stored on your PC, in addition to access to a slew of radio stations. And, in a move sure to please the geekier among us, Mercora has chosen to use an optimized version of Ogg/Vorbis to deliver high-quality audio while keeping bandwidth usage in check. All this comes at a cost, of course, with the introductory price starting at $4.99/month, and subscription packages coming in at $29.99 for six months, $49.99 for one year, and $99.99 for two-years (you'll also probably want an unlimited data plan with your carrier unless you want a big surprise on your next bill). While not part of the initial launch, Mercora says it'll soon roll out a social network component to the service, which'll let you browse and listen to the music collections of up to five friends or family members. If you're curious, you can get in on a free preview right now (minus the music sharing), just don't get carried away with the data usage if you aren't prepared to foot the bill.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

Looks like that developer site's leak of the Samsung SGH-i607 coming to Cingular was spot-on. The pics above plastered in Howard Forums are purported to be the latest Q-killer from Samsung. No front-facing camera like we we've seen elsewhere but that Cingular branding is unmistakable. Just to run it down again for ya, this WinMo Smartphone is expected to bring quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE / HSDPA data, Bluetooth, MicroSD expansion, and a side mounted scroll-wheel said to be "on-par, or better than those on RIM devices." We'll see soon enough if the Q3 launch date is accurate. Another picture 'round back after the break.

[Thanks, Notorious J]

Sure, you like the Motorola Q but hate the fact that it's missing WiFi. And the lack of 3G on the HTC Excalibur is also a deal breaker. Well, look no further for your QWERTY fix brother, 'cause our favorite maker of boxy black devices is showing off their SGH-i600 Smartphone at IFA in Berlin. This tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 baby brings it all: HSDPA, EDGE, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel cam with another up front for video calls, a 2.3-inch, 65k color, 320 x 240 TFT display, Microsoft's Push Mail, and 128MB ROM / 64MB RAM with MicroSD expansion all powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone on a TI OMAP 1710 processor. The phone looks small enough for single-handed operation, can pull double-duty as an HSDPA modem and can even be switched into USB mass storage mode for easy drag-n-drop data transfer off your PC. And yeah, it's FCC approved so the estimated Q4 2006 release date is certainly do-able. Now sop-up the drool and click-on for more pics.

[Thanks, Martin]

You know it, you need it, and now you can finally loose your wild-eyed gaze upon these non-blurry pics of the HTC Excalibur. Or more appropriately, the Xda cosmo as this fully-functional, pre-release device from O2 Germany has been re-dubbed. Yeah, Germany, which explains the Z and Y switcheroo on zee handy's QWERTY QWERTZ keyboard. Still, with an expected September/October European release (coming to The States a few months later), we'd expect the specs and cosmetics of this quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 1.3 megapixel cam WinMo 5.0 Smartphone to push through to production with few, if any changes. Click-on for a few more hi-res shots courtesy of the::unwired.

[Thanks, Martin]

So Palm has officially announced one of those three Treos we were promised at the end of last year, and just as we expected, this Windows Mobile 5 AKU2-powered model will be sold exclusively overseas. Unfortunately the company neglected to include a detailed spec sheet in its press release -- more information will be available closer to the as-yet-unspecified launch date -- so all we really know at this point is that it's destined for Vodafone's 3G UMTS network in several European countries. Also unclear is how this model relates to other upcoming Treos we've seen under such codenames as Hollywood, Lowrider, Nitro, and Lennon -- we sure wish Palm would be a little more forthcoming with its product roadmaps. As usual, though, you can always count on us to bring you every little bit of Treo news we get our hands on, even if Palm and friends don't give us much help putting it in context.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

While we loved the specs on Sharp's W-ZERO3 / WS003SH, let's just say that its plastic, chub of a case was seriously short on swank. Now check the W-ZERO3 [es] / WS007SH hotness which our brethren at Engadget Japan got the jump on this AM. Developed under that same partnership with Sharp, Willcom, and Microsoft, the new WS007SH variant keeps the Pocket PC flavor of Windows Mobile 5.0 and 416MHz Intel PXA 270 proc but brings a second, standard phone keypad to the mini, sliding QWERTY. They even managed to squeeze that same VGA resolution into a smaller, 2.8-inch screen while keeping the best of the rest: 128MB flash (60MB allocated to the user) and 64MB of SDRAM, miniSD expansion, USB, and 1.3 megapixel cam. All this and she still manages to slim-down from 70 x 130 x 26-millimeters and 220-grams to 56 x 135 x 21-millimeters and 175-grams. Ok, no WiFi or Bluetooth yet folks, but these, like a Japanese OneSeg expansion pack for digital TV on the go are currently under development and will certainly increase the bulk. Available only in Japan starting July 27th for ¥29,800/¥36,800 (or about $260/$321) with/without a one-year contract. Many more pics, including the OneSeg TV expansion after the break.

[Via Engadget Japan]

We heard it was coming and sho'nuff, MobiTV just announced the immediate availability of their MobiTV service for Windows Mobile powered phones and devices. When run on WinMo 5.0 Smartphones, the $10/month service supports full-screen viewing, an EPG, and hot TeeVee streaming over WiFi or high-speed 3G-ish nets. And while the press release is just ambiguous enough to make it sound like any WinMo 5.0 Smartphone or PocketPC will work with the service, a bit of digging finds only the Treo 700w, Sprint PPC-6700, Cingular 2125 and 8125, and Motorola Q  listed as "supported devices." So you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

It's been a crazy few years for the once unknown Taiwanese OEM known as High Tech Computer. Although still not a household name like Sony or Samsung, HTC has leveraged its strong ties with Microsoft to offer tantalizing products that have made us early-adopters stand up and take notice, and now the company feels that it's in a strong enough market position to ditch the Qtek brand and begin selling phones under its own name. The Qtek phase-out was announced as part of HTC's official unveiling of the 3G Hermes Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone -- now known as the TyTN -- as well as the compact, UMTS-capable Breeze smartphone -- which is now called the MTeoR (yeah, we're noticing a MOTO-like naming trend too; see the rebadged STRTrk for further proof). In announcing July's European launch of these self-branded handsets, HTC reemphasized its dedication to the many carriers selling its products under their own names, but this development certainly bodes well for the company's overall name-recognition; imagine, instead of lying and telling people we have a Treo because Sprint-branded-UTStarcomm-PPC-6700-based-on-the-HTC-Apache sounds so nerdy, we may one day be able to proudly proclaim "Oh, it's an HTC." [Warning: PDF link]

[Via Geekzone, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Gigabyte is showing off two new Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones at Computex in Taiwan this week, the g-Smart i120 and g-Smart i300. The i300 appears to be a slightly modified version of what was previously just known as the g-Smart i, a tri-band device (no EDGE, sadly), packing 64MB of RAM, 256MB of ROM, 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, a 2 megapixel camera, 2.4-inch QVGA screen, as well as a MiniSD slot and an FM tuner; what's not clear if it supports the same crazy rabbit ears for TV reception as the other g-Smart we saw a couple of months ago. The i120 takes a different approach, featuring a built-in keypad, but the specs are pretty similar otherwise, with tri-band GSM (900 / 1800 / 1900) and GPRS, 64MB RAM, 256MB ROM, 802.11g, Bluetooth (just 1.2 on this one), infrared, a 2.4-inch QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera, and, it seems, a TV tuner in addition to the FM (no evidence of rabbit ears though). Check the read link below for some more pics courtesy of Phone Daily.

[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]

We've been on the fence about HP's hw6000 line of Swiss Army phones ever since we first spotted the GPS-equipped iPaq hw6515 -- these models include everything but the kitchen sink, but they also force you to use that non-standard 240 x 240 screen. Still, MobileTechReview's in-depth look at the latest member of the family, the hw6915, makes us think we could overlook the square screen and lack of 3G data options because, well, the rest of this Windows Mobile 5.0-powered smartphone sounds like exactly what us convergence-geeks are seeking. According to MTR, the quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE handset impresses on many fronts, including its solid keyboard, powerful internal antenna, GPS performance, and best-in-class benchmark numbers. HP also throws in some nice extras, like helpful Today screen plug-ins, a full-featured wireless radio manager, the ability to location-stamp photos, and even A2DP in the Bluetooth stack, which isn't normally included in WM5 AKU2 devices out of the box. Besides the fact that this screen resolution may not support all third-party apps, the only real knock to this model concerns the camera's startup/shutter lags -- and if that's the worst thing to be said about a device that seemingly does it all, then we're totally sold.

The folks over at O2 have been busy little beavers today, first releasing the HTC Tornado-based Xda IQ, and now posting the Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU update for Xda Atom owners to download. We're sure that we don't need to repeat the advantages of AKU2 again, but since our contracts stipulate that we rehash the deets ad infinitum, we'll remind you that this upgrade adds BlackBerry-like push email through the Messaging & Security Feature Pack (MSFP) along with an improved wireless connection manager, quicker screen orientation switches, and other minor enhancements. Atom owners also get a few device-specific bug fixes with the new firmware, most notably the elimination of the "heartbeat noise" that had apparently plagued some versions of the FM tuner app. For now you'll need your handset's serial number registered with O2 in order to access the download, but it'll probably be just a matter of time before it becomes available on one of the popular cellphone forums.

[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]

PhoneArena has once again and gotten the dirt on a new handset, and a pretty hot one at that: a Windows Mobile-powered Pantech flip phone that's supposedly heading straight to Verizon. Courtesy of extensive documentation from our friends at the FCC, the PhoneArena gang learned that the PN-820 clamshell runs on WM5 for Smartphones, sports a 1.3 megapixel camera and miniSD slot, and perhaps best of all, has all of your networking needs covered with both WiFi and Bluetooth (well, not all of them -- cellular data seems to max out at 1xRTT). While certainly not the hottest PocketPC clamshell we've seen (that honor goes to the HTC Star Trek), the PN-120 should still be one of the easiest ways to slide WM5 into your pocket once it hits stores.

[Via PhoneArena]