And here’s their intro video:

News of a new Palm mobile has been doing the rounds, with CrunchGear apparently having the exclusive lowdown on what’s what.

The site has it from a trusted source the latest Palm Smartphone will be of a slider phone design, with a full QWERTY keyboard in a portrait formatted touchscreen. To our knowledge the case is the very first type in a new venture for them and only the second display of that ilk, in their current line up.

This is supposedly what Palm is bringing along to CES in Las Vegas this week, with the announcement to be unveiled to the muggles this Thursday.

According to the site’s insider source, this will also feature a new OS with the accompanying standard office type functionality we’ve all come to expect from Palm and their Smartphones.

Also being touted around is that the phone’s maker is now known. It’s been rumoured by other sources too that the handset will be made by the same builders of the Palm Pro, namely one HTC.

There have been troubled times of late for the former 3Com spinoff company, perhaps a break away from the formats of yesteryear could be a good move for them. As we’d hate for a company of this history and worth to fall along the roadside, just like Psion have.

Let’s hope we hear more on this model and that it’s not some pie in the sky concept, as it does sound rather intriguing.

For one, it isn’t modelled after one of their full frontal QWERTY keyboard phones, which do come off sometimes feeling distinctly like a budget version of a BlackBerry of long ago.

And for another, it’s a new format for them in a slider phone. This could add more weight behind them within a new avenue on a route that they haven’t previously ventured down before. It could open up more or just another market for them along the way.

With RIM said to be producing their first ever slider model Smartphone later this year, perhaps Palm could get their first and grab the attention of those who don’t want to wait around or even go for a BlackBerry.

Lest not forget, that if the mock-up image is anything to go by and the information on hand is accurate, it’s both a full touchscreen display and has a physical keyboard. All of which means it sits on the fence between three types of phones, touch screen, one with a full QWERTY keyboard and also a slider handset.

This could very well hit more demographics that anyone cares to wish for; let’s just hope it has WIFI and all will be great with us.

Note: The image above is just a fictitious possibility, from Palmdoc_Flood on Flickr – seen here.

The phone first aired at CES this year has just been given the release date of March, for Korea. Elsewhere in the world? Your guess is as good as ours, but no holding your breath please.

We‘re unsure as to why we’re showing you this, it’s not to upset you with the unlikely hood that you may never actually see it or just to make you droll over its stunning design.

iRiver’s portfolio of products to date are a little of the beaten track in terms of how they look, which make them stand out from the crowd of drab, run of the mill devices seen around today.

So when we first saw the ‘Wave’ our interest was initially peaked to go so far as to say ‘OooOoOoo, When’s that going to arrive then?’. Sadly all went quiet on the western front, until recently.

Besides being a touch screen phone, they’ve also appeared to have made it a video player extraordinaire. Or a video player first, seeing as they’re well known for them and a phone second – who knows.

It’s a looker definitely, but that’s all we can say at present seeing as its website is in Korean and we’re a little sketchy on that.

What we can make out from the site is that the iRiver Wave has a 3-inch 480 x 272 touch screen, 4GB of storage, WiFi 802.11b/g, Adobe flash support, a media player backing H.264 and OGG, FM tuner, SRS WOW HD, a micro USB port and a microSD slot.

All we can say at this point is, bring it over here iRiver! Let’s try together and Wave goodbye to the iPhone’s world domination.

If you wish to upset yourself further, visit – http://product.iriver.co.kr/p_w10_over.asp

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Tube

It’s here, folks. Nokia has finally unveiled the first touchscreen Symbian S60 powered music phone, which has been majorly successful to draw all the attention towards it over the past few months, being dubbed simply as the “Tube” throughout its development cycle and even making a quick cameo in ‘The Dark Knight’.

This touchscreen beauty has been launched under the XpressMusic sub-brand of Nokia phones and the company has thoughtfully avoided the N-series branding to it. The phone comes equipped with an astonishing 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen display that does 640 x 360 pixels. At the core, the phone is powered by the Symbian S60 5th Edition. There’s a 3.2 MegaPixel autofocus camera with Carl-Zeiss Optics, something that has now become a standard in most Nokia phones. It also features Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS, Wi-Fi, a microSD card slot with support for 16GB cards and a 3.5mm earphone jack to be used with any ordinary headphones. There might even be a proximity sensor, built on the grounds of Apple’s iPhone.

The phone apparently will be priced around 218 GBP (around $390), unlocked, and will come in shades of black, red and blue. There’s even a complimentary 8GB microSD card thrown in. Expect it to be available somewhere in Q4 2008 with a ‘ComesWithMusic’ edition to be rolled out in 2009.

The site, MoDaCo.com, claims that the phone, which apparently is set to be launched Christmas, is the HTC Touch HD and features a WVGA screen almost as big as the iPhone, but does 480 x 800 px resolution. The phone is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 and is backed by a Qualcomm 7201A processor clocking 528Mhz. 

The phone also boasts GPS and HSDPA with a 5 Megapixel camera and a MicroSD expansion slot. Oh, it comes with a 1350mAH battery and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top.

Uhh? Do I hear someone ask, “Where’s Wi-Fi ?” ? Well, it’s not known, and it may be a while before we know for certain, so I’m going off to drool over the following pictures and try to get in touch with someone over at HTC. 

[There's even more gold here]