IBLOG SPACE

LG was naturally expected to show up for today's announcement seeing how the company has been a longtime"strategic" partner of Microsoft's -- and indeed, they're bringing two models into the fold. First up is the Quantum (known as the Optimus 7Q in markets outside the US, pictured right) that we broke as the C900 back in August, a landscape slider equipped with quadband EDGE and triband HSPA (850 / 1900 / 2100MHz), 16GB of storage, a 5 megapixel camera with 720p video capture, a 3.5-inch WVGA display, and an all-too-familiar 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon core; as you might have guessed from the 3G bands, this puppy will be coming to AT&T. Next, the Optimus 7 (pictured left) will be seeing a much wider international release on Telus in Canada, America Movil in Mexico, Movistar and Vodafone in Europe, and SingTel in Singapore. What is it, you ask? Well, it's exactly what you'd figured by now from the leaks -- a 3.8-inch WVGA slate at 11.5mm thick with specs

Stop us if you've heard these specs before: 4.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) TFT screen, 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8250 system-on-chip, 576MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, and Microsoft's latest mobile OS on board. Yes, the HTC HD7 is almost a carbon copy of the much-loved HD2, albeit with a major upgrade to Windows Phone 7 software and an appreciated bump to 720/24p video recording. Beyond those enhancements, American buyers will be greeted with preinstalled Netflix, Slacker, and T-Mobile TV entertainment apps, along with 16GB of built-in storage. T-Mobile gets the honor of being the exclusive US carrier, with exclusives also going out to O2 in the UK and Ireland and Telstra in Australia. O2 Germany will also distribute the phone, along with Movistar in Spain, Bouygues Telecom in France, and a choice of carriers in Italy. Bear in mind that the non-US HD7s are likely to come with a less capacious 8GB of storage. The phone is scheduled for an October 21 retail debut in Europe

HTC's kicking the Windows Phone 7 era off in style today with no less than three new phones scheduled to debut on October 21 in Europe: the HD7, the 7 Mozart, and the 7 Trophy. Both the Mozart and Trophy offer a WVGA LCD screen, a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8250 chipset, 576MB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, and 720p video recording. Where the 7 Mozart sets itself apart is in having an aluminum unibody construction wrapped around its 3.7-inch display, together with a more advanced 8 megapixel imager and a Xenon flash. The 7 Trophy makes do with an LED flash illuminating 5 megapixels' worth photons, but it does also come with HTC's promise to be the most aggressively priced WP7 handset from the company. It'll be a Vodafone exclusive across the big red network's global footprint, while the Mozart will be exclusive to Orange in the UK, France, Spain, and Switzerland, exclusive to Deutsche Telekom in Germany, and available on a choice of carriers elsewhere. No peep of an Americ

To say we've been eagerly anticipating the Dell Lightning would be an understatement along the lines of suggesting Microsoft's launching a few Windows Phone 7 devices today. Dell's AMOLED-equipped WP7 debut has just gone official with a cringe-worthy renaming to the Venue Pro for T-Mobile, who has in turn announced its intention to carry the 4.1-inch portrait QWERTY slider "in time for the holidays." Notably, you won't be able to purchase the Venue Pro directly from T-Mo stores, as Dell and its choice of handpicked retailers are set to handle the purchasing experience. Don't look for any AT&T hookups, either -- Dell has acknowledged T-Mobile as its "launch partner" for the device, giving team Magenta a second major exclusive, even if this one doesn't last much beyond the launch period. Needless to say, we'll seek to confirm the full spec sheet as soon as we can, though the officially known 1GHz Snapdragon chip and 5 megapixel imager

Samsung's i8910 HD -based Windows Phone 7 prototype has probably been the single most publicly-recognizable face of the platform this year, so it should come as little surprise that the Korean giant has come out swinging with production hardware today -- and fortunately, the pair of retail models look nothing (well, very little) like the proto. The Focus is the phone we've been calling the i917 Cetus in leaks, a curvy, glossy slate with a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display (presumably ripped right out of the Galaxy S line), a 5 megapixel camera, and support for microSD expansion up to 32GB; it'll be hitting AT&T in the States. The Omnia 7 is the second model, launching on Orange, SFR, Movistar, and T-Mobile across Europe with the same Super AMOLED display, Snapdragon processor (rare for a Samsung, by the way), 5 megapixel cam, and either 8GB or 16GB on board. Expect both of these to launch in time for the holidays; in fact, the Focus can be yours on AT&T come November

Need a break? No chance, there are still so many more phones to look at! HTC's sole Windows Phone 7 launch device for AT&T has just been revealed as the HTC 7 Surround . You'll remember this as the sexily titled T8788, which made us gape back in August with its unusual design that incorporates a slideout speaker. We can now add an integrated kickstand to the multimedia-friendly physical design, while the spec sheet (available in full after the break) is consistent with the rest of HTC's lineup. The 7 Surround offers a 3.8-inch WVGA display, a 1GHz Snapdragon chip from yesteryear, 576MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera with 720p video, and Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround Sound technologies. This unconventional handset will be exclusive with AT&T in the US and Telus in Canada. Pricing in the US will be $199.99 on contract.

These details aren't supposed to be live yet, we presume, but AT&T's just posted full information on its Windows Phone 7 lineup over on its site. We've got the Surround from HTC, the Samsung Focus, and the LG Quantum -- and as expected, they're a slider (sorta), a slate, and a full QWERTY slider, respectively. The Surround is touted as featuring Yamaha speakers in its slide-out surround sound arrangement with 16GB of onboard storage, the Focus is "slender and light" with a 4-inch Super AMOLED display that we imagine is ripped straight out of its Captivate stablemate, and the Quantum's listed with a 5 megapixel camera. All three are listed as "coming soon," so we'll have to hold tight and see whether we get any release dates today.

Mere days behind the mighty N8, the second Symbian^3 device to hit the market is now... well, hitting the market: the svelte C7. Though it lacks the N8 's powerhouse 12-megapixel cam with mechanical shutter and xenon flash, the C7's still got 8 megapixels' worth of photon catchers paired up with dual LED illumination -- likely more than good enough for most users -- along with that sweet 3.5-inch nHD "ClearBlack" AMOLED display featuring insane, mind-bending contrast ratios. Nokia's official PR (which you'll find after the break) doesn't mention which markets will be first to take delivery of the shipments, but regardless of where you may be, expect to pay somewhere around Nokia's suggested list price of €335 ($468) before subsidy -- €35 less than the N8's €370 ($517).

Boy, there's hardly been enough time to catch our breath and analyze the first unintentionally official Windows Phone 7 handset in the form of LG's Optimus 7, yet Samsung is already joining the fray with its own Omnia 7. Currently populating its very own landing page on Samsung's Russian site, the Omnia 7 is a 4-inch Super AMOLED beastie with a rather aged 1GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 at its core, 8GB of storage, and a 5 megapixel cam that can do 720p video. Hit up the source link before somebody over in Moscow wakes up and realizes that Windows Phone 7 isn't meant to be launching for another few hours.

Microsoft's been really keen to keep all the Windows Phone 7 fanfare to itself, but LG's equally zealous official UK blog has just thwarted that effort by posting both details and a gallery of images of the company's Optimus 7(aka E900) handset online. To be fair to them, it's nothing a ton of leaks haven't already revealed: the Optimus 7 will be a 3.8-inch touchscreen device, sporting WVGA (800 x 480) resolution, 16GB of onboard storage, a 5 megapixel camera with a 720p video mode, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, a digital compass, and your usual proximity and ambient light sensors. Also present will be that DLNA streaming functionality we saw at IFA, officially titled Play-To, which will be exclusive to LG's phones along with Voice-to-Text and Scansearch, the former being a message transcriber and the latter acting as an augmented reality real-time search service. Intriguing.

Modu Mobile finally came clean about the T-phone today, but we're afraid it's bittersweet news -- it's not the lilliputan Android device we've been lusting after for months (that's coming "in the near future") but rather a Brew-based tri-band phone with a 2.2-inch QVGA touchscreen on the relatively old QSC6270 chipset. Thankfully, it does have a host of modular accessories that up its geek quotient radically. You can "camerafy" your Modu by sliding it into a 5 megapixel shell, "sportfy" it with an exercise armband sleeve, "boostify" by slotting it into a combo speaker dock / base station, or even "textify" by adding a vertical QWERTY keyboard. Considering the phone is apparently still Guinness-certified as the lightest touchscreen device in the world, we imagine these combinations will be similarly svelte, but we'll still be waiting for the Android-infused Modu W to appear, thank you very much

As you may have heard, Microsoft is having a major event Monday in NYC to announce details surrounding Windows Phone 7 launch dates and devices... and Engadget is going to be there delivering the best live coverage in the universe. In case you don't already know, Steve Ballmer and AT&T's Ralph de la Vega will be on stage to delight your senses, and there will likely be lots of new hardware we'll be getting our hands on.

We've seen O2 Germany's HTC Schubert and a Chinese HD3 , but here's a giant Windows Phone 7 device with "T-Mobile" clearly painted on the upper right-hand corner of the screen. TmoNews got these alleged images of the HTC HD7 from their usual anonymous source along with a partial spec sheet, which actually claims slightly different dimensions for the phone and double the amount of flash memory (16GB in all) than we heard before. Different strokes for different folks, or is one of these two rumors totally off? You'll probably want to keep both possibilities in mind before considering this last tidbit from the very same source: the phone will reportedly cost $199 on a two-year contract. Or you could just wait for us to blow out all the Windows Phone 7 details tomorrow, of course.