This one has been in the works for a while, but Verizon has appropriated UTStarcom's TXT8010 my-first-QWERTY phone for tweens and dropped it onto an unsuspecting market with the new "Blitz" moniker. The slider phone will run you $70 with a two year contract, is available now, and includes a few perks like VCAST Music, a microSD slot, 1.3 megapixel camera and stereo Bluetooth to keep your jaded child interested.

You don't see terribly many low-cost horizontal slider dumbphones from Samsung, and that's left the market wide open for LG with its Rumor and Scoop -- until now, that is. Meet the Messager, a candybar whose sole reason for being is making your texting life a little easier thanks to a QWERTY keyboard that slides out to the side. The 1xRTT data (yipes!) and 1.3-megapixel sensor aren't going to bake any noodles, but at $199 with no contract whatsoever, there's not a lot of room for bellyaching, especially when you throw in A2DP and a microSD slot. Just a hint, though, Samsung: any phone + pretty colors = $$$. Seriously.

Remember this? Yep, it popped up a while back as the uncreatively-named UTStarcom TXT8010, but never managed to launch on any US carrier -- a shame, considering the low price point (theoretically, anyway) and the somewhat trick look and form factor. It's all good, though, because Verizon has picked it up as the "Blitz" with a Wal-Mart launch on August 8 followed by Best Buy on September 28. Its main lease in life will be as an INpulse prepaid 'set -- so you know it'll be nice and cheap -- but it's still going to manage to eke out VCAST Music support, a microSD slot with support up to 4GB, stereo Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel cam, and VZ Navigator. And what's this, a default Verizon UI in orange? Are our weary eyes deceiving us?

While Nokia makes a habit of practically defining "featurephone" for the industry, traditionally it's handsets like the N95 that hog all the spotlight, leaving Nokia's few QWERTY phones in the shadows. Not that they've been trying too hard -- while the E62 and E61i have both shipped over here, neither has featured 3G data in US bands, and the E62 even had the distinct pleasure of having WiFi stripped out. Enter E71, the successor to those phones, and Nokia's very first QWERTY device to feature US-friendly 3G.

Nokia is also (finally) taking form factor much more seriously: at 10mm thick, the E71 is one of the slimmest Nokia phones to date, and Nokia claims it's the thinnest QWERTY smartphone on the market. The E71 also attacks the drab, plastic looks of its predecessors with chrome accents and a glossy screen. The phone is incredibly pocketable, and comfortable to hold and use. Of course, with the smaller size Nokia had to cut down on screen real estate and keyboard spacing, but at a QVGA resolution there's little suffering on that front. The keyboard had a much more rigid, clicky feel to it compared to the spongy keys of the E62, and we were virtually typo-free on it within minutes.

If there's one way to ruin an otherwise perfectly good handset, it's by equipping it with a disgustingly triband GSM / EDGE chipset. Fortunately, though, this isn't one of those otherwise perfectly good handsets, so we're not going to sweat it too hard. The KS360 from LG made its loud entrance at CommunicAsia this week, featuring a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 2 megapixel cam, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio, and a 2.4-inch QVGA display, all wrapped in a rather freakish red and black shell with globule-like controls. Asia's the target market for the device, destined for a wallet-friendly price tag where features like 3G and inoffensive industrial design are apparently optional. Yeah, QWERTY's always nice, but not when we find it physically difficult to look at the keyboard.

[Via Unwired View]

The lucky chaps over at Boy Genius Report have managed to get their hands all over Sony Ericsson's latest and greatest -- the hotly anticipated Xperia X1. Early word is that the 800 x 480 screen, optical joystick, and speedy HSDPA data are all very welcome, but the keyboard (which looks like it would be a joy to type on) leaves a lot to be desired. Of course, the OS should come as no surprise, and they don't seem to have any shots of Sony's "panel interface," so for now you'll have to make do with some nice looks at the exteriors of the device. Hit the read link and check it out yourself.

Nokia's finally fessing up to its latest E series QWERTY phone, but took this one in a seriously surprising direction... for Nokia, anyway: thin. The E71 is one of the thinnest phones we've ever seen exit the doors of the Finnish giant, at 10mm thick, but there's still plenty of room for everything you'd expect out of an E series phone like WiFi, HSDPA, A-GPS and even a 3.2 megapixel camera and a front facing camera for video chat -- the main place the E71 differs on specs from its new E66 sibling is the 2.36-inch QVGA screen, just a fraction of an inch smaller. The E71 even manages to squeeze in extra battery, with 20 days of standby, 10.5 hours of GSM talk or 4.5 hours of 3G talk. There's 110MB of built-in storage and a microSD slot if you grow out of that, and the same business / personal switcher of the E66. Folks accustomed to previous Nokia QWERTY phones in the form factor like the E62 will find the screen noticeably smaller, but with the same number of pixels and an incredibly pocketable form factor there's plenty to love about this new entry. Unfortunately, the $500-ish pricetag isn't quite alluring, and like the E66, Nokia doesn't have any carrier subsidies lined up just yet. The E71 should arrive in the States -- and yes, with full 3G US bands -- sometime Q3 of this year, and will be available in grey steel and white steel.

A reader was sent a rather revealing "consumer survey" this week, and though the carrier (or manufacturer) responsible for commissioning it wasn't revealed, we're thinking AT&T may have been behind this one. Why's that? Well, several phones -- most real, one rendered -- were shown during the course of the survey, and one of the devices was an AT&T-branded Pantech QWERTY slider that we've straight up never seen before, so unless there's some funny business going on, no other carrier should have access to that intel. In fact, the whole survey was focused on text messaging and text-centric, QWERTY handsets, asking questions about what sorts of form factors and features customers would like to see to improve their messaging experience. Also pictured were a Sidekick Slide (presumably for comparison's sake), a Samsung QWERTY slider sporting looks similar to the i620 and i640 (minus Windows Mobile, seemingly), and a rendered, unbranded device touting a gargantuan display and a number of available colors. The reader was asked what name they thought best suited this particular phone, and the choices were "Blaze," "Quickfire," and "Reveal." Needless to say, we're not so sure how we feel about putting an "AT&T Blaze" in our pockets -- but if it happens, at least we know who to blame.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

We'd always prefer an actual announcement to a mere teaser, and in the case of the E66 and E71, we've seen these things exposed so many times in so many ways now that we're actually starting to think that we might know more about the business-class hotties than Nokia itself. Here's the latest scoop: Mobile Phone Helpdesk has gone ahead and locked down press shots of both devices, adding a little more glitz and glamor to the pair than the typical prerelease in-the-wild shots afford. We're seriously not sure what Nokia's waiting for here, but we think it'd be well served to push 'em out ahead of the Touch Diamond and 3G iPhone rushes.

While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for some sort of official confirmation that this thing even exists, Boy Genius Report has heard some rumblings that AT&T is putting the Nokia E71 through its paces with the intention of launching it -- in your choice of black or white, no less. Multiple Eseries colors certainly aren't without precedent, so we can buy that much -- and AT&T has previously launched the E62, so we can totally picture this going down. What's more, we've now heard from an independent source that the AT&T-branded E71 does in fact exist and is currently being crafted in Nokia's San Diego facilities (production models won't be born in the same place, we presume). Just a warning, guys: if this ends up happening as an EDGE-only device, we're going to lose it.

It certainly didn't take very long for the apple to fall a long, long way from the tree. Just a handful of months after completing its spinoff from parent O2, MWg has started taking to rebranding existing handsets -- in this case, a pair of UBiQUiOs. The QWERTY duo both run Windows Mobile 6 Professional, with the 501 model featuring a 200MHz OMAP750, 2 megapixel camera, and WiFi to get the bits flowing when the GPRS radio won't do. The higher-end 503g (pictured), meanwhile, upgrades to triband 3.6Mbps HSDPA and swaps out the TI core for a 520MHz XScale. Not bad, we guess, but we liked the old days when these guys commissioned their own handsets from the ODMs -- how are they supposed to stand out when they're just slapping a silkscreened logo on a device that's already in the marketplace?

[Via Cellpassion]

For any enV owners out there who managed to not splurge on a Voyager, it looks like you could end up being rewarded here something fierce. Verizon's true enV replacement, the VX9100, has now found its way into some glamorous press shots -- and while we're sure that reaction's going to be mixed, we're really digging the super-simple candybar appearance when the QWERTY clamshell is in its upright and locked position. Looks like it'll come in at least two colors to start -- black and maroon -- and we're also hearing that the name "enV2" is being tossed around in Verizon's documentation (surprise, surprise). Careful observers will note that the phone is sporting a USB port (either mini or micro, we're not sure) on the side, a promising sign that we'll finally be able to ditch those custom LG chargers in the not-too-distant future.

We also got hold of a portion of the Motorola W755's user guide -- nothing too inspiring, we suppose, but if there's one thing Verizon needs, it's another midrange flip. We kid, we kid.

Here you go QWERTY fans, ASUS' M536. This touch-screen follow-up to the M530W runs Windows Mobile 6.1 under that 2.43-inch, 320 x 320 display. Inside you'll find 802.11b/g WiFi, 256MB of flash, and GPS. While it sports 3.6Mbps HSDPA on the 2100/1900/850 bands, it's unfortunately limited to GSM/EDGE/GPRS riding the 900/1800/1900 frequencies. As such, we'll bet this one is heading straight to Europe, Statesiders. Our hands-on was brief due to that fingerprint scanner. Still, we'd bet that this business minded handset will come sporting ASUS' own sultry WinMo overlay whenever it does launch. Be sure to check the gallery over at Engadget.

Nice going RIM, you've successfully filed for a patent on a device that companies like HTC have been making since 2005. That's right folks, your friends at Research In Motion have just thrown an application in the direction of the US Patent Office which should look painfully familiar. The company is calling it a "Hybrid Portrait-Landscape Handheld Device With Trackball Navigation and QWERTY Hide-Away Keyboard," but we're calling it the Wizard. We suppose it's possible that the BlackBerry-maker has something up its sleeve that goes beyond the typical functionality of a phone like this, but nothing in the application seemed to indicate such a scenario. Did RIM even check out the competition before issuing this paperwork? It seems unlikely given the obvious and commonly used shape and design of this particular handset... oh, wait, this one has a trackball. Okay, our bad.

[Via BlackBerry Cool]

Sprint doesn't get all the buggy, texty fun anymore. Following a preorder announcement last month, the LG Rumor has gone and morphed into the LG Scoop for Alltel in three QWERTY-licious colors: Slate, Turquoise, and Citrus. Unlike the Rumor, the Scoop features Alltel's Celltop app for rocking out with various widgets of information on the phone's home screen; otherwise, you get a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expansion, music player, Bluetooth, and that fancy slide-out keyboard for SMSing yourself right into oblivion. Grab it now for a shade under $60 on contract after rebates.