BlackBerry Bold Touch brings back the Bold 9000's awesome QWERTY keyboard

Remember the first time you got a good look at the BlackBerry Bold 9000? The handset's keyboard  became a gold standard for physical QWERTY keyboards with .its large keys and easy to feel "fret-like" separation of the letters. Since the release of the BlackBerry Bold 9000, RIM has taken a step backward with its QWERTY keyboards and even the one on the Bold 9700/9780 is more cramped than the one on the Bold 9000. That is why Berry users are very happy to see the BlackBerry Bold Touch (aka Dakota or Montana) feature a QWERTY keyboard that is very similar to the one on the BlackBerry Bold 9000.

The GSM flavored model has a 2.8 inch screen with resolution of 480 x 640 and 287 dpi. A 5MP rear facing camera offers HD recording at 720p, and "Image Stabilization" along with Flash. 8GB of memory comes on the device as well as 768MB of RAM. 32GB of memory can be added with a microSD card.

And for those who want something cool on their new 'Berry, the trim around the keypad lights up. Add that to the outstanding QWERTY keyboard on the Bold Touch, an optical trackpad, support for NFC and it sounds like RIM has a winner here. Considering all of the positive feedback RIM received about the Bold 9000 QWERTY keyboard, putting it on a touchscreen model can only be a positive as it brings easy typing to those who like to use a physical keyboard even on a touchscreen phone.

Best Buy pre-order page for the Motorola XOOM is back

After a couple of false starts, it looks like Best Buy has put the Motorola XOOM on it's site to stay. The Honeycomb powered tablet is being offered with 3G for now but is upgradeable to 4G. The price of $799.99 is listed on the page, but any pre-orders must be done at a Best Buy store.

What you can order online are the accessories for the tablet which includes a dock for the XOOM that costs $49.99. The dock offers a separate speaker for enhanced audio, and features an adapter plate and an AC wall power supply. Other extras include a $39.99 portfolio case and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard. This full-sized QWERTY,  priced at $69.99 is powered by two AA batteries and will work on most of Motorola's Android offerings.

The last accessory offered by Best Buy and available to be ordered online is the HD Speaker Dock for $129.99. With Noise-Canceling technology, sound is improved. The dock also allows your XOOM to make hands-free video chats with the Speakerphone mode.

Of course, there is no sense in ordering the accessories online now unless you go into one of the big box stores and pre-order the Motorola XOOM in person. Anyone planning on spending their Sunday at Best Buy?

L.A. residents get offer from T-Mobile for free myTouch 4G for today only

With T-Mobile a major NBA sponsor, what could the carrier do to celebrate today's NBA All-Star game in Los Angeles? How about offering any L.A. resident a free myTouch 4G (in black, only) with a signed 2-year contract. A tweet sent out by the carrier gives out the details of the offer which is available today only.

Perhaps the rest of the country might consider this to be unfair, but for those in L.A. looking for a 4G phone at a great price, free is hard to beat. In fact, you might consider this offer to be a slam dunk. Of course, there is that little matter about the new 2 year contract, but if you have an upgrade collecting dust, or you are looking for a new carrier, you might as well take advantage of the offer. Oh, one last condition-the free handset can be ordered online only!

Honeycomb ported over to HTC EVO, HTC Droid Incredible and HTC Desire HD

A trio of HTC Android phones have had the Honeycomb SDK preview ported over to each phone. The HTC EVO 4G, Droid Incredible and Desire HD are the three smartphones that were used for this "experiment". While not really functional, it does show some of the new things that Honeycomb has in store for upcoming Android tablets.

It's interesting to see the bits and pieces of Honeycomb as they appear on a smaller smartphone screen. It makes you look forward to seeing how good the OS will operate on the larger 10 inch tablets coming soon like the Motorola XOOM and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Your Android device needs a charge? Here Comes the Sun!

One of the major complaints from those who use handsets loaded with the Android OS is that the battery seems to run out early. Most handset users don't like to carry their A/C wall charger with them, and if they do have the charger, there isn't always a place to plug it into. That is why the Umeox Apollo offers a very interesting option for recharging-solar power. The handset was recently introduced at the MWC in Barcelona.

Two variants are being produced. One model (MTK6573) is made for U.S. users, runs on AT&T's frequencies, and is expected to launch in Q3 of this year. The other model (MTK6516) is designed for Europe and much of Asia and should be released next quarter..

Spec-wise, this phone is already well behind the curve with a 3.2 inch display with resolution of 320 x 480. The Apollo has 1GB of internal storage and does come with a microSD slot. There is a 3MP camera on the back and the device comes with an FM radio.

According to the manufacturer, it will take 2.5 hours of sunlight to have the tank filled for every day usage. On the other hand, going from empty to full will require a fairly hefty 17 hours of sunlight. There is no word on how much the unit will cost.

Best Buy shows an on-line simulator of the HTC Thunderbolt

If you've been waiting for Verizon's HTC Thunderbolt to be released, it looks like things may be getting a bit closer, as the Best Buy site now has an on-line simulator for the phone. It still doesn't give a release date, which has been rumored from last week through February 28th, but keep in mind you can pre-order it with a $50 deposit at their store locations.

The simulator shows some information about the phone, such as 360 degree overview of where the power button, earpiece and camera are located (like you couldn't figure that out yourself?), as well as how to use the software, streaming video, and camera. Under the 'discover more' section it will guide you on how to download and install apps though the Android Market, connect to a Wi-Fi network, use Google Maps for driving directions, setup and pair with a Bluetooth device, add and remove desktop widgets, and how to setup the Wi-Fi Hotspot. All of this is pretty basic stuff, as nothing too advanced is shown, but at the end it does list all of the phone's specifications.

It's still not a release date, which is what everyone is waiting for at this point, but there are also listings on the Best Buy site for the Thunderbolt's screen protector and purple soft-shell case.

Windows 8 tablets running on ARM chipsets might be coming as soon as the holidays

Microsoft has reportedly set aside about a 1000 strong army of engineers to work on Windows 8 powered by ARM chipsets, instead of the x86 Intel architecture, a first in history. Moreover, the Redmond-based software giant is now working with one goal in mind - to put Windows 8 on a tablet as soon as possible, and, if rumors turn true, will be ready with the touch-optimized UI of Windows 8 on tablets for the holidays this year, or early into 2012. Steve Ballmer even demoed some of it at the CES show last month.

While the advantages of moving Windows to ARM-based silicon are numerous, mainly in the performance/battery life ratio, Microsoft needs to move even faster, so as to ensure at least some presence in the tablet world. By this year's holiday season Honeycomb slates and iPads will be everywhere in our homes, and the tablet would have received enough critical mass of popularity for Microsoft to swoop in and grab some share with its robust driver and legacy software support. Even with the iPad enterprise adoption it is still raking in about $100 per device in access and license fees to its corporate software.

Excited about Windows 8 on ARM-based chipsets? We'll be when we hear what battery life can Microsoft give us. Windows 7 was sped up because of Vista's lackluster acceptance, and now Microsoft is moving even faster with Windows 8 as the competition is threatening to marginalize it altogether if it doesn't move along.

Motorola ATRIX 4G gets the root treatment before even landing on your porch

We got a tip from the popular AT&T developers designgears that over at the venerable XDA-Devs modding community they have set up a separate thread for the soon-to-be-released Motorola ATRIX 4G to discuss its root, created together with Getafixx, and tested on a retail model as well.

Wait, what? It's not even out yet, and it has already been rooted? Now that's dedication, why do manufacturers bother to lock the device anyway. Some of the early preorders of Motorola's first dual-core handset are supposed to be arriving today, as we reported.

Now not only you will be the first to own a dual-core handset on a major US carrier, but you can now also be the first to own a rooted dual-core phone, if potentially voiding warranty is not one of your worries. You can find the tutorial here.

NEC MEDIAS E-04C takes the crown of the world's thinnest Android phone

Leaked on a Japanese blog two days before its official release on the NTT DoCoMo netowrk, the NEC MEDIAS E-04C has one very impressive feature - it is the thinnest smartphone to date, with just 0.3" (7.7mm) of waistline.

And it is just days since the thinnest smartphone in the worlsd - the Samsung Galaxy S II - was officially announced, and weeks after we previewed the previous thinnest - the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc - so wake us up when we can fold these around styli.

The device is running Android 2.2 Froyo, and still manages to pack in a 4" display, as well as an NFC chip for mobile payments and the like. There aren't any other spec details at this point but this leaked booklet of the NEC MEDIAS E-04C, but February 24th is fast approaching, so we will know more at the grand unveiling in Japan. From the booklet below it certainly seems that there will be both a black and a white version of the world's thinnest smartphone.

If this is what's hiding inside NTT DoCoMo's Spring portfolio, there are sure to be other surprises that we will reveal to you as they get unveiled.

A minor WP7 update to arrive in the next few days

An unconfirmed report claims that a minor WP7 update, which will open the door for the first major refreshment of the platform, is to come as soon as February 22, which is tomorrow.

The rumour states that this update won't bring any additional features to WP7, but will be needed for the first major update of the platform, which is popularly known as NoDo. As you most probably know, it is set to bring copy-and-paste and CDMA support to Microsoft's mobile OS.

The NoDo update is expected to grace the WP platform in the second week of March.