Smartphone Roundup Of What’s To Come In The Near Mobile Future

Image courtesy of downtr

So many new phones these days it’s hard to keep track of what’s a real piece of hardware and what’s purely a rendering or speculation. I wanted to compile a small list of post CES, pre MWC phones that may or may not make it to consumers hands. I kept the list down to phones planned on a US launch; while some have concrete launch dates, some have yet to be seen.

The mobile world is the fastest growing area of technology today. Phones will soon be surpassing computers for web browsing, document shuffling, social media and most light computing, including laptops.  Phones will probably soon become self aware and create a network of autonomous robots that take over the world as we know it. Alright, well maybe not the replace laptops part but the rest is destined to be true. Here’s what I came up with so far. Feel free to add whatever else you know of with some helpful links.

Motorola Motoroi is set to be released in March in the US and other markets. We are hoping the specs floating around are the same that will be seen when the new smartphone/tablet reaches US shores.What we know so far: 3.7 Capacitive Touchscreen, 720P recording, 8MP camera, HDMI out, 3X4 QWERTY keypad, 8GB of storage + Micro SD slot. Image courtesy of Gizmodo

Motorola Shadow a.k.a Nexus Two could be the next offering through Google’s new Phone site. We dont know too much about the release of the phone, but the renderings suggest a slimmed down version of the Droid with white keyboard and a completely useless wrist strap tab (possibly even a dealkiller). The slim device shows some pretty good potential for those looking for the next Google Superphone with a dedicated keyboard. I though for sure even though Motorola was present at the Nexus launch, that HTC has the Nexus line on lockdown. The only spec I have seen so far is the possiblility of a 4.3″ 800 x 484 screen. Image courtesy of Gizmodo

Motorola Backfip is a confirmed go for March of this year. Announced at CES the phone looks to be AT&T’s breakout into Android. The phone is very similar to the cliq but has the additional features of amazing your friends with the flip around screen to different modes. The backflip has pretty decent specs for a mid level smartphone and should keep the average user pretty happy with solid features and MotoBlur. The known specs are 3.1″  (320 x 480)screen, 5MP camera w/ flash, 528 MHz CPU, 256 Ram, 512 Rom, Wifi, and GPS. Image courtesy of androidjunkies

HTC HD2 (Leo) has been available in other parts of the World for a few months now. The super thin phone was one of the first to have the Snapdragon inside and offers a robust amount of features even though it runs on WinMo. Rumors have it that the phone is indeed coming to the US under T-Mobile sometime in the next few months. The 4.3″ (800×480) multitouch screen is one of the largest on the market and arguably one of the best looking phones today. It they decided to upgrade the screen to AMOLED, I would not be too upset. Other features include 488MB Rom, 512MB of Ram, GPS, Face proximity sensor, compass, BT 2.1, 5MP camera, and a headphone jack. This phone is sreaming for a Windows Mobile 7 update, and possibly an Android port would be nice. You can pull a lean on your house and get one from ebay or an overseas vendor, but if you can wait for TMO to release, you can probably have one at a decent subsidized price. This is my favorite phone if only WinMo 6.X was not running the show.

The HTC Obsession is another T-Mobile phone and could be the first to run Window Mobile 7. The HSPDA phone will not be released until close to the end of the year but will still feature specs that you see today in smartphones. The CPU is set to be the 1GHz Qualcomm that we see today, a 5MP camera, 3.7″ AMOLED display, HD video recording, Wifi, 512MB Ram/Rom, and some other standard smartphone features found today. HTC has been doing pretty well lately in the industry with all the Android phones released, lets hope we get some updated specs closer to release time. No images released yet.

HTC Supersonic could be the world’s first Sprint WIMAX phone. The phone is tipped to be similar to the HD2, but running on the latest Android and Sense UI. Not much in the form of details but this could be a huge bomb or may fair well depending on the coverage. No word of pricing for the phone or plans. Current sources claim that the software is still being worked out.

Other HTC news: T-Mobile should be releasing the Mytouch Fender LE phone toiday! The Mytouch 2 (slider) is in the works for May time frame and may just end up being a qwerty Mytouch or just an update with specs similar to the Fender LE. The HTC Expresso will also be released by T-Mobile in May, and could just be a US version of the HTC Hero.

The Sony X10 could be one of the best phones on the market when its released. (Spec wise) Running on a modified Android OS named “UX” it’s said to be a mix between Android and Symbian. The phone has a 4″ (480 x 854) OLED display, 8.1MP camera with 16X digital zoom and facial recognition. Sony chose the Snapdragon  1GHz CPU, and the norms such as Wifi G, BT, GPS, 8GB memory card, and 3.5mm headphone hack. Pre-production model reviews stated that a charger should always be close by due to the power hungry CPU, but we have pretty decent results with other Snapdragon phones that are currently out. The phone was announced a while ago and was supposed to be the one of the top contenders in the market but looks now to be in line with a few other offerings out. The phone looks to support Quad band so you should be able to keep it with you wherever you go and have your choice of GSM providers. HSPDA 10.2 is also supported for when the time comes that we actually see those speeds. The price has not yet been released but Sony promised us the handset Q1 of this year. Image courtesy of redmondpie

LG has some ok Smartphones available worldwide but nothing that really catches my eye too much. With all the rumors of WinMo 7 launching or not launching LG leaked out some good information on the upcoming LG Apollo. Release dates are in the August time frame but may be worth the wait for anyone who’s a Windows Mobile fan looking for the next Superphone. The CPU is set to be a 1.3GHz Snapdragon, 3.8 (1280 x 720) AMOLED display, 10MP camera, and is both EV-DO and HSDPA compatible. This would be a strong presense for LG releasing one of the first WinMo 7 phones and should will certainly crush HTC’s Obsession for the 7 shootout. Hopefully 7 does get announced in a few weeks at MWC so more makers can tie on with the OS for future releases. No pictures or price yet released.

Last but not least Apple should make a showing pretty soon with the next gen iPhone. The iPhone is one of the best selling smartphones of all time but looks to have some competition lately. Hopefully the next gen follows the rumors and makes some needed changes to match the latest competition. Renders floating around suggest a slimmer more squared off appearance and possibly more screen space and less bezel. The hardware specs if true could trump your year old laptop’s and even have you flipping it on ebay faster than you think. The rumored specs are Dual Core CPU and added Ram,  front and rear 5MP camera w/ flash, removable battery, touch sensitive case, OLED screen, unibody aluminum design, and possibly 64GB internal memory. We should find out about the latest Apple offerings in the near future. Image courtesy of Mashable

You can also find some new offerings from Dell, Samsung, RIM, Nokia and a few lesser known companies such as Gigabyte, and Meizu. This was just a small list of what Ive seen popping up around the Web. Word

[Info from Engadget, Gizmodo, and Phone Arena]

Related posts:

Did WinMo 7 book a flight to Barcelona? Coming Soon: Motorola Defy, the World’s First “LifeProof” Smartphone HTC One X (G4X) Rumors for T-Mobile; Tegra Quad Core Inside? Motorola’s future is BLURry, flashy phones and other good stuff at CES Motorola Announces Motorola CLIQ Android Smartphone First Impressions: U.S. Cellular HTC 7 Pro Windows Phone 7 Smartphone Motorola’s Rugged Phones take on Mike Rowe and his Dirty Jobs MWC: One Last Look at Mobile World Congress 2011

Tags: Android Phones and Tablets, HTC, Microsoft Windows Phone Devices, Motorola, MWC