HTC has announced a trio of new smartphones for the Chinese market.  All three comes as part of the affordable Desire series and are billed as: HTC VT, HTC VC and HTC V.

All three handsets come with Android's latest flavor, Ice Cream Sandwich, at the helm, along with Sense UI 4 on top.  And yes, it should make you feel bad if the new phone you bought is still stuck in Gingerbread land.

Each of the three smartphones come in different designs for the shell (noticeably different, too -- not just a little change here and there), although the hardware and guts are all pretty similar.  You get a 4-inch Super LCD display (800 x 480 resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera module, aGPS, 3G with HSPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4GB of internal storage and microSD card support.  Muscle is provided by a 1GHz single-core CPU, paired with 1GB of RAM.  The HTC VT (model T328t) takes a single SIM, while both the HTC VC (model T328d) and HTC V (model T328w) come with dual SIM bays.

Why outfit relatively similar phones with different designs?  Apparently, because each handset is going to a different carrier.  The HTC VT will be released by China Mobile; the HTC VC by China Telecom; and the HTC V by China Unicom.  Pricing for all phones is set at 1,999 Yuan (around $320) on a prepaid agreement.

[via ePrice]

Sprint has announced the newest high-end player in its smartphone line-up.  Called the HTC Evo 4G LTE, the latest addition to the Evo line will be the first US handset to feature HD voice, which boasts a "fuller, more natural-sounding and less -fatiguing voice quality."

Clad in an aluminum spaceframe, it measures 0.35 inches in thickness and comes layered in an anodized black finish.  Oh yeah, the kickstand is back, allowing you to set it on a table for viewing video without requiring a separate stand.

Details of the HTC Evo 4G LTE include a 4.7-inch Super LCD screen (1280 x 720 resolution), an 8.0 megapixel camera module (with 1080p video recording), a 1.3 megapixel video cam in front, aGPS, LTE, WiFi, NFC, 16GB of built-in storage, microSD card expansion and a 2,000 mAh battery module.  Muscle is provided by a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4, paired with 1GB of RAM.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is the mobile OS of choice with Sense 4 UI running on top. The usual roster of Google Mobile Services are onboard, along with various preinstalled apps from both HTC and Sprint.   And like HTC's later releases, of course, it will have Beats Audio tech running inside.

Preorder for the HTC Evo 4G will begin May 7th, priced at $199.99 on a new two-year agreement.  The actual phone is expected to ship in June at the latest.

[Sprint]

Nokia has announced two smartphones running Windows Phone for the Chinese market.  The handsets consist of the Nokia Lumia 800C and the Nokia Lumia 610C.

The Nokia Lumia 800C is based the previously-released Lumia 800, while the Nokia Lumia 610C is  based off the Lumia 610.  Both are generally the same as the original releases, with the only difference being the CDMA radios installed in them.

Details of the Lumia 800C include a 3.7 inch ClearBlack AMOLED display (800 x 480 resolution), an 8.0 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with dual LED flash, aGPS, 16GB of internal memory and a 1450 mAh battery module (rated at up to 9.5 hours of talk time).  Muscle is provided by a 1.4GHz single-core processor, paired with 512MB of RAM.  It runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, with Nokia Maps (local content support), Nokia Drive and Nokia Music (12 months unlimited free music for users in China).

The Nokia Lumia 610C, on the other hand, will feature a 3.7-inch capacitive display (800 x 480 resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera with LED flash, aGPS, 8GB of internal memory and a 1300 mAh battery module (rated at up to 9.5 hours of talk time).  Muscle is provided by an 800MHz single-core processor, paired with 256MB of RAM.

Both the Nokia Lumia 800C and the Nokia Lumia 610C will be available from China Telecoms at a subsidized price on a three-year agreement.  Release dates are early April for the 800C and later in the second quarter for the 610C.

[Nokia Conversations]

In the market for a mid-priced phone with a big display, LTE connectivity and a dual-core processor?   Then you'll probably get giddy over the LG Lucid, an attractively-priced handset with some attractive specs going for it.

The big selling point?  The price.  Selling for $79.99 on a two-year agreement with Verizon, this handset literally takes the place of feature phones from just a year ago.  Considering these specs would have put it on the high-end from the same time last year, that's pretty impressive.

Details of the LG Lucid include a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display (with Corning Gorilla Glass on top), a 5.0 megapixel camera module (with LED flash and 1080p video capture), a front-facing video cam, aGPS, 4G LTE, WiFi (with mobile hotspot), DLNA and microSD card expansion.  Muscle is provided by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, paired with 1GB of RAM.

The appearance looks a bit like a reworked LG Optimus Black with slightly harder corners that makes it just a bit more business-like than most phones in its price range.   It will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread , with an Ice Cream Sandwich update promised to be in the works.

The LG Lucid will be available from Verizon beginning March 29th.

[Verizon]

Sony has officially announced the first smartphone in its roster to come with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in tow.  That honor goes to the Sony Xperia Neo L MT25i (whew!), the successor to last year's Neo.

Slated to drop in both black and white, the handset measures 121 x 61.1 x 12.2 mm and weighs 131.5 grams.  We love the design -- slim lines, slanted edges and that unique aesthetic that defines Sony's releases, which veers away from the iPhone-alike styling many manufacturers have been going with.

Details of the Sony Xperia Neo L MT25i include a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display (854 x 480 resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera module (with LED flash and 720p video recording), a VGA front-facing video cam, aGPS, HSPA, WiFi, 1GB of onboard storage, microSD card support, and a 1,500 mAh battery.  Muscle is provided by a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255, paired with 512MB of RAM.

As with many Sony releases (especially lower-range smartphones like this one), we're not sure if this will ever see the light of day in the US.  Add the fact that the phone was announced in China and it's probably one of the units destined to stay in Asia.  No word on release dates or pricing.

[via UnwiredView]

Sony has announced a new smartphone aimed squarely at the mid-range market.  Called the Sony Xperia Sola, the handset appears to be a slightly-trimmed version of the Xperia S.

The handset will debut a new feature that's likely to be a staple in future Xperia phones called "floating touch," which lets you navigate a browser page by hovering a finger over the display, similar to a mouse.  When you hover over a link, it gets highlighted. That way, you don't accidentally tap on the wrong hyperlink when they're lined up in very close proximity to each other -- a common problem with mobile browsing.

Details of the Sony Xperia Sola include a 3.7-inch Reality Display (854 x 480 resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera module, NFC, and WiFi, with a 1GHz dual-core processor providing the muscle.  It gets all the usual features found on other Xperia handsets, including SmartTags, Mobile Bravia image processing, 3D surround sound audio and full access to the Sony Entertainment Network.  It will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with all the usual preloaded services, out of the box, with an upgrade to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich due in the summer.

No word on pricing, but the Sony Xperia Sola is slated for a global release in the second quarter.

[Sony]

Verizon has announced a new QWERTY feature phone debuting on its network. Yep, a feature phone.  Called the Samsung Brightside, the press release appears to be aiming the handset at students and small business owners.

Sporting a landscape slider form factor, the device features a four-row QWERTY keyboard, complete with a dedicated row for numbers.   While a handset like this would have been great a couple years ago, we don't understand the reasoning -- almost everyone buying feature phones these days might as well buy a low-end smartphone and get a better deal.

Details of the Samsung Brightside include a 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen (320 x 480), a 3.2 megapixel camera module, aGPS, 3G with HSPA, WiFi, Bluetooth and microSD card expansion.  Despite being a feature phone, it comes with social network integration (Facebook and Twitter), a preloaded document viewer (including Office files and PDFs), and a full suite of messaging options (including mobile email).

We have no idea who's going to buy a feature phone these days, especially at the Samsung Brightside's price of $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate on a new two-year agreement with Verizon Wireless.  For that price (or even less), you can get a decent Android smartphone.  Anyway, it's available now.

[Verizon]

At the Mobile World Congress earlier this week, HTC announced the company's newest flagship device.  Called the HTC One X, it looks to be a strong effort from the manufacturer who's been overshadowed by other smartphone makers as of late.

Dressed in a sleek unibody design, it features a case machined from a slab of white polycarbonate, topped by durable Gorilla Glass out in front.  The styling looks more like Nokia's Lumia line than HTC's usual designs, but the result is undeniably stunning.

Details of the HTC One X include a 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 display (1,280 x 720 resolution), an 8.0 megapixel camera module (with 5-level LED flash, 1080p video recording and concurrent still/video capture), a 1.3 megapixel front-facing video cam, aGPS, 4G, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, 32GB of built-in storage (only 26GB available to users, though), 1GB of DDR2 RAM, microSD card expansion (up to 32GB) and an 1,800 mAh battery module.  It comes in two versions: Global (with  a Nvidia Tegra 3 system in a chip, HSPA+ only) and LTE (with a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor).

It will run Android Ice Cream Sandwich and all its usual accoutrements, with the latest HTC Sense 4 running on top. Other notable details include Beats Audio, ImageSense (a camera suite) and HTC Music Hub.  The phone measures 5.29 x 2.75 x 0.37 inches and weighs 4.58 ounces.

The HTC One X has been confirmed both for AT&T and T-Mobile in the US.  No pricing, but the phone is slated to hit markets worldwide starting in April.

[HTC]

Nokia's lineup so far at the Mobile World Congress has been pretty modest.  That is, until they showed off the Nokia 808 PureView, a sleek little phone that packs an industry-first 41-megapixel camera sensor.

Of course, resolution is far from everything.  At these high levels of detail, sensor performance and light management matter just as much, if not more.  Still, you can't help but be taken in awe by such a high pixel count.  It's like the phone's camera has megapixels growing out of its megapixels.

The Nokia 808 PureView will be the first smartphone to use the company's PureView imaging technologies, which combines high-resolution sensors with Carl Zeiss optics to bring top-of-the-line phone cameras.  According to Nokia, file size won't be ridiculous -- PureView uses a clever interpolation algorithm that condenses up to 5 pixels into one pixel.  As such, the images won't lose any clarity when you zoom, which Nokia directly attributes to the high amount of detail it can capture.  Of course, it can do 1080p video, too, which it pairs with CD-quality audio recording.

Other details of the phone include a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen (with a disappointing 360 x 640 resolution), a 1.3GHz single-core chip, 512MB of RAM, aGPS, 3G with HSPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, 16GB of onboard storage and microSD card expansion.  Excited yet?  Be ready to douse water on that fire in your belly -- the handset comes with Symbian Belle, instead of Windows Phone, so it's not entirely a must-have device.

Pricing for the Nokia 808 PureView will reportedly be around $600 before taxes and subsidies.  It hits the market in May.

Remember the smartphone-tablet combo Asus showed off way back in May of last year?  It took a while, but the versatile device is finally ready for primetime.  And the Asus Padfone made its official debut  at the Mobile World Congress this week.

If you don't remember it from last year's promotional video, it's a phone that can be equipped to work as a tablet.  It works much like Motorola's Lapdock, except the phone docks into a slot on a tablet, instead of a notebook form factor.   Just like the Lapdock, though, the tablet uses the phone's hardware and resources to power it.

Details of the Asus Padfone include a 4.3-inch AMOLED display (960 x 540 resolution), an 8.0 megapixel camera module (with LED flash), a VGA shooter in front, aGPS, HSPA+, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI out, 16 to 64GB of internal storage, microSD card expansion and a 1,520 mAh battery.  A 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor runs the show, with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at the helm.

The big story, of course, are the additional hardware.  There's the Padfone Station, a 10.1-inch tablet, with its own battery module and a docking slot in the back.  Slide the phone in and the slate will use the smaller device's resources, with the display piped across the larger panel.  There's also the Padfone Station Dock, a keyboard dock for using the smartphone-tablet combo like a laptop, similar to the Transformer Prime.

The Asus Padfone will ship in April.  No pricing was announced for either the phone, the tablet or the keyboard dock, though.