Phones, phones and more phones are being planned to be released by Alcatel this May 2007. From what we hear, the planned release of phones will be dubbed as the fashionable bunch. There are designs dubbed to be of "soft-touch plastics", "leather-like finish", and phones adorned by "dots of liquid metal." There are even floral finishes for the very ladylike phone buyer in everyone of us.

The French multinational company calls this 20-phone model May launch, a "Spring lineup of fashion" phones. Apart from the looks department, though, the phone models are reported to boast techie features such as 1.3-megapixel camera, 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, dedicated music controls, and support for 1GB TransFlash cards.

Sounds yummy. But if you're thinking a unit from such a well-designed selection of phones is going to cost you mucho dinero, fear not. There are such models in the selection of 20 that will surely belong to the budget of any mid-ranged or lower-ranged buyer. Alcatel is also working with GSM handsets approved by the AT&T; the CDMA phones should also be good to go on several "smaller regional carriers".

Interesting and all, but how will this lineup appeal to the Wi-Fi phone-hungry crowd?

Have all the mobile phone designers been going to Weight Watchers these days? It seems all of the recently released mobile phones are getting thinner and thinner, and Samsung's SGH-T519 Trace is no exception.

The Trace, which measures in at just about 0.3 inches thick, is even thinner than its already wafer-thin cousin, the SGH-T509. For now, it holds the title of world's slimmest phone, although with the speed of mobile phone releases we expect that title to be handed over to another phone pretty soon. Don't let this little number's slim figure fool you, though - it packs quite an impressive wallop in the features department.

The Quad-band GSM/EDGE Trace packs a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD/TransFlash expandable memory, and an integrated music player that supports MP3, WMA, and ACC. It sports a 220 x 176-pixel TFT LCD screen that can display 262K colors and, of course, it also has the ubiquitous Bluetooth connectivity.

If you'll allow us to go off on a tangent for a bit, there's something that we've really wanted to say since all these slim phones started coming out. Y'know, any thinner and pretty soon we'll have a mobile phone that can be used as a knife. And that would be a good thing, since with a phone like that, you can actually defend yourself against a mugger with the very thing that he wants to take away from you. Snaps for irony!

Alrighty then, back to the topic. The Trace will be made available this month, but pricing and the actual release date are yet to be announced. Word is that T-Mobile will be offering the Trace to consumers, but that piece of info was still tentative at the time of writing. We'll be sure to keep an eye out on this phone to bring you more updates as they surface.

From the looks of the phone alone, you can see that the P310 is not only slim, it's really small also. How small? It's a bit smaller than a normal person's palm. The P310 is actually an upgraded version of the earlier released P300, and upgraded it sure was! The Samsung P310 can aptly be called a mini handy camera because it has a pretty decent camera though it's only 2 megapixels (which is already quite a bump up for the P300 which only had 1.3megapixels). The camera comes with a flash, can take videos, and has a resolution of 1600×1200 pixels.

The tri-band phone, as already mentioned, is very small. It measures 86 x 54 x 8.9 mm and weighs 85g. The P310 sports a 240x320 TFT screen with 256k color and an internal memory of 80MB. Not that massive, we know, good thing it has expandable memory, with the help of a mini SD card (TransFlash). There will also be no problems with connectivity as the P310 has Class 10 GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth v1.2, and USB connectivity.

Additional features of the P310 include Java MIDP 2.0, SyncML, Built-in handsfree, and MP3 player which supports MP3 and AAC formats. The P310 is quite a looker, and the features seem to be at par with the other models that are currently out in the market. However, it's reported that this baby will be sold for 570 euros or around $730 for us in the US. It's a bit on the high-end in terms of price, but if you're looking for a 3G phone that'll easily fit in your pocket or purse, this one's a good bet.

LG has just launched the KG338 in China. A member of LG's line of Chocolate music phones, the KG338 has a unique roller design between its 262k-color TFT screen and the numeric keypad. As a music phone, the KG338 supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, 3gp, and MP4 formats. The roller is used to scroll through the playlist and acts as the phone's main music control along with a pair of buttons at each side of it.

Like all recent phones, the KG338 supports both Bluetooth and USB connectivity. That means you can play multiplayer games with the Bluetooth connection. Using Bluetooth, you can also use the KG338 as a walkie-talkie. The USB plug and play feature lets you use the phone like a thumb drive. This GSM phone also has a 1.3 megapixel camera that you can use to take pictures or video.

The KG338 has an internal memory of 32MB and can record up to 90 minutes of audio. It's got a Transflash expansion slot and comes with a bundled 128MB card.

The KG338 is now available in China and retails for about $200 US.