A rumor is going around that an upgrade of Cingular 8125 will be coming in the market this fall. How true could this be?

The rumor says that Cingular 8525 is a HTC Hermes Pocket PC phone branded by Cingular. Both the front camera for video calling and the video calling feature have been removed. It will have a much higher resolution version than its predecessor 8125 (branded as a popular phone back in May) and the image shows a push to talk button on the side. Whether it supports PTT is another issue but some say that Cingular has had PTT for months now.

Whether this rumor is true or not, maybe all we could do is wait for the official word from Cingular. Here is an image of the rumored Cingular 8525:

Lately, a lot of rumors about Microsoft Smartphones are going round. And just as to how one QWERTY mobile model will look like, details are a lot clearer than mere rumors.

HTC's Excalibur is way smaller than its predecessor, Q. It is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capable, not to mention, it being a quad-band GSM/EDGE phone. The said smartphone, with a QVGA screen, also features side navigation for one-handed use. It also boasts of its innovative touch sensitive scroll pad with home and back keys, replacing the usual jog dial.

Rumors has it that it will hit US shores late this year. Although launch date and price are still to be known, we encourage those who want to be pulling up Excalibur from their pockets start saving now.

Say goodbye to your free-loading days because come next year, you'd have no excuse not to chip in. Thanks to a new wireless standard called Near Field Communication (NFC), you'll be able to pay simply by swiping your cell phone a few inches from a cash register. The NFC Chip embedded in your phone will be able to send your credit card number stored in your chip by way of short distance radio waves.

If you're thinking that this is nothing different from radio-frequency identification (RFID) and other contactless payments, well hear us out first. Not only could a NFC give data, it could also take in data, such as a receipt zapped to it by a cash register or a bus schedule from a tag embedded in a bus-stop sign.

And if you're thinking that this would only be an unnecessary waste of your hard-earned dough, think again. You need not buy a new cell phone to use this one. The miniSD-card-size adapter from SanDisk can add NFC to any smartphone with a Symbian operating system when it hits stores next spring.

There's a reason why product manuals never make it to the best-seller's list. They are boring. We certainly don't read them until our unit has been damaged and only to know how we wrecked it. But read the manual before we start fiddling with our spanking new toy? Nah!

Sleep-inducing they may be, those manuals contain a wealth of information about the product. It's like a treasure map that unlocks this feature here and activates that feature there.

For Awright (who used his girlfriend as a guinea pig), this basic character flaw afflicts all people with social lives. And PDA makers failed to take into consideration. While a monkey can operate a typical PDA, "There is a learning curve to them, while most end users want them to be intuitive," he says. By the way we didn't meant to imply he is dating a monkey or a guinea pig.

Why, Awright asks, is the Motorola RAZR the top selling unit in the US and not one of those smartphones that can control the movement of a space satellite from the ground? "It's sleek, it's simple, and it does what it does (make calls). For it to do more would make the target audience freak out because they would have to learn something new." Ditto for the iPod. It's nice and simple. So to all PDA manufacturers, Awright has this message: keep it simple and easy to use.

Yes, a smartphone has made your life more convenient - it is a PDA, media viewer, and cellular phone in one. In fact, you can't even fathom to imagine going out of the house without the nifty contraption with you, because hey, you'll never know when you'll get lost. But with your smartphone smartly tucked in to your pants or handbag, you know that it only takes a few and easy steps to get a map and be on the right track. If that doesn't work out, you could always call a friend to ask for directions. Easy, simple and convenient.

But in the words of John Barrow: "there is no reason that the universe should be designed for our convenience." And this applies here, because the convenience part of the equation comes at a price - additional monthly fees to be exact. Because you can't stand your smartphone's small screen, you do your world wide web research at your laptop or desktop (so you pay for broadband at home). Small things like that could rack up your bills.

So what could be the cons of converged devices. First off, a smartphone equates to a higher monthly bill. Granted that buying smartphones cost less than buying a cell phone and PDA, but you'd have to shell out more money when doing other things like mobile surfing. But still, if it gets the job done and you can pay for the bills then that's no problem.

The second 'con' is the fact that most smartphones are bulky and some just look like a bland rectangular blah. This would be a con to you if you're the aesthetic type, but if you are the type that goes for functions, then that's not a negative aspect in your book.

The third red light is the fact that compared to cellphones, smartphones are way, way complex. An inexperienced smartphone user would only be wasting precious Benjamins if he/she could not maximize the use of their smartphones, since most smartphones are bought via word of mouth and not by the fact that they could be utilized.

So whether converged contraptions is financially more tasking or not depends on the user. If a user is able to do his/ her job in a more convenient and efficient manner, then I doubt if he would even glance at his bills because the functions outweigh the costs. Otherwise, if you can't really get a hang of your smartphone, then the costs would definitely be highlighted.

Pop quiz. You were given $300,000 that you have to spend within a minute or lose every penny of it do you:

a) donate it to charity to feed thousands of starving children in Africa

b) add it to your Congressman's re-election fund

c) buy a phone

Wait did we say buy a phone? A single phone with a $300,000 price tag. Just the unit and no company stocks? Meet the Black DiamondWM5 Smartphone which is also an insanely expensive phone. Designed by Singaporean Jaren Goh and created by Swiss company VIPN, not much ios known about the publicity shy Black Diamond.

The ones that we heard about is that the Windows Mobile 5 device has a quadband GSM, WiFi, 128MB of memory with SD expansion, a 2-inch display, and a 400MHz XScale. The keypad is touch-sensitive and completely invisible when not lit. The skin is made of titanium alloy sprinkled with diamonds. (Minus the diamonds, the WM5 retails for as low as $100). The Black Diamond is also quite rare with only five units planned for production. Go ahead and indulge yourself with the Black Diamond. Your Congressman will be waiting for you in hell for letting those poor kids starve to death.

You read that one right. Future Treos will have built Wi-Fi technology according to Palm's CEO.

You do know that Treos are really popular and feature-packed, that's why a lot of people want to have them. But there are still others still skeptical about grabbing their own Treos because the models currently out don't have Wi-Fi technology built into them.

Palm's CEO, Ed Colligan, said that they are definitely considering including this technology in future models of their smartphones. The reason they didn't put this technology before was that they were concerned about how much energy from the battery it would consume, the Treos being packed with features and all.

Colligan didn't mention exactly when their Treos with integrated Wi-Fi will be launched, but there have been rumors before about Palm's new model. Just recently, Cingular Wireless leaked some future phone releases which included a Treo code-named Lennon that supposedly has built-in Wi-Fi, and will run on Windows Mobile 5.0.

Well then, you have more reasons to desire Palm's smartphone now.

This program is billed on its website as being, "made by Mac users for Mac users." Considering the fact that at one time there was no easy method, other than emulation maybe, that would allow a Mac user to sync and transfer files between his machine and his Windows Mobile device, any Mac user who finds him or herself in the unfortunate situation of being stuck using a Windows Mobile portable device will find this piece of software indispensable.

Given high ratings by critics, The Missing Sync will make your Mac and Pocket PC play nice together. Along with the basic functions like transferring files between your Mac and your mobile, The Missing Sync lets you use a variety of different software from desktop productivity to mirrored tasks and events in iCal and Entourage. Whenever manufacturers (like Microsoft and Apple) neglect to provide solutions that bridge the final gap and fill a consumer want or need, someone else inevitably will do so, and usually rather quickly too.

Mark Space, the company that is selling The Missing Sync, is a company that specializes in Mac synchronization products. Specifically, Mark Space provides Mac synchronization software for the Sony PSP, Windows Mobile devices and Palm Operating System devices, along with a variety of small hip top smartphones as well.

HeroCraft, the makers of the well-received cellular game Ball Rush 2, is at it again! Only this time, they not only plan on dominating the cellular phone gaming scene, but the PDA gaming scene as well. The company has just released a game called Cake Press-- a new multiplayer tetris-style arcade game for mobile devices.

The company promises that the game will be able to let people come and play together, regardless of what brand of mobile phone they are using, or what smartphone is helping them organize their lives.

The only requirement is that all devices must have Bluetooth connectivity in order for players of the game to interact with each other real-time. In other words, there is just one word to describe this game - fun!

The objective of the game is to place three or more blocks of the same or suitable type in some kind of continuous figure. But that's not going to be easy for there are lots of enemies ready to squash you just like that.

This will surely be a big hit to those who have grown up playing with Commodore 64 or Atari, for the company promises that Cake Press will bring back those cherished moments of playing Tetris on the mentioned consoles. The game features the following:

    * 8 characters to choose from
    * 8 enemy units
    * 3 different gaming sets
    * 12 exciting levels
    * Multiplayer mode up to 4 human players can play through Bluetooth (different smartphone and PDA models supported);
    * 2 single game modes (Campaign and Freeplay).

Cake Press costs 4.95 US Dollars and it runs on Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian mobile devices.

Unlike many movie starlets, the Nokia E70 (about $500) isn't just about looking fabulous. The E70 has earned the right to bear the smartphone tag and has GPRS/EGPRS and WCDMA network technology for fast, wide area connectivity with WLAN for complementary local area connectivity. It boasts of up to 64 MB of built-in memory that can handle high capacity storage add-on applications, email attachments, photos and MP3 music files, plus up to 2 GB of data with a miniSD memory cards. The E70 also has the ability to switch from one memory card for another without having to remove the battery. Who says fabulousness and functionality can't exist in one package?

Other features include:

• Full keyboard and high-resolution color screen
• POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP native email client
  
• SMS and MMS text messaging
  
• Instant messaging
• Email attachment viewers (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs and .ZIP manager) and editors (documents, spreadsheets, presentations)
• 2.0 megapixel camera
• Full Service Organizer: contacts with images, calendar with accept/reject a meeting request, to-do list, applications synchronize with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes
• Nokia Browser, JavaScript™ 1.3 and 1.5 support
• Loudspeaker for easy conference calls and hands-free use
  
• Car enhancements enable flexibility of communicating while on the road