Pharos has unveiled their latest baby – the Traveler 137 Windows Mobile smartphone, which immediately received CES’ prestigious Innovations award.

The specs include such things as:

• Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) MSM 7201A 528MHz CPU
• 256MB DDR SDRAM, 512MB Flash ROM
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, Tri-band 3G 1700/1900/2100 MHz (HSDPA 7.2Mb/s, HSUPA 2Mb/s)
• 3.5-inch WVGA (480×800) 65k color touchscreen
• aGPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, FM tuner
• 3 megapixel camera for picture or video, front-facing VGA camera for video conference
• microSD card slot
• 1380 mAh Li-Ion battery – 4 hours of talk and 200 hours of standby time
• Size: 4.60×2.40×0.51 inches, weight: 4.9 ounces

Pharos Traveler 137 will be available late in Q1 2009 from major retailers for a suggested price of $599.95. The device comes with a full-featured navigation software with voice prompts on a pay-as-you-go basis that spares users an ongoing monthly fee.

Initially, U.S. maps will be provided free of charge, while pay-as-you-go maps will be available for Canada, Western Europe and Eastern Europe on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis. The service will soon be extended to include maps of China, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere.

[Image from Engadget]

CES Unveiled

CES has barely even started, and you can already feel the energy here in Las Vegas. CES Unveiled tantalized throngs of press and bloggers with the latest gadgets ranging from some ridonkulously thin big-screen TVs to robot pandas. Part of the fun was actually fishing out the few companies who had something to do with mobile phones. If you really need to be on the bleeding edge of what’s going on at what is likely the biggest show in technology, be sure to check out our Twitter feed. I’m thumbing away on it right after chatting with some impressive developers. Better still, if you’re at the show, feel free to throw a few @ signs our way.

So how did the CES preview go? Hit the jump! 

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It’s getting to be that time of year again. With the holidays and New Year celebrations behind us, the mobile world shifts its focus to beautiful Las Vegas where CES 2009 is scheduled to kick off tomorrow! Naturally, the IntoMobile team is going to be embedded in Las Vegas, bringing you the highlights from CES 2009.

High on our list of gotta-see manufacturers is Palm (NSDQ: PALM). The ailing smartphone manufacturer is expected to unveil their next-generation Nova mobile operating system and Nova-powered hardware at CES 2009, and we’ve got out exclusive invite into the event. Palm recently received a $100 million cash injection, so we’re expecting big things from Palm. We’ll be live-blogging this particular event, and with a little luck, we’ll have a live video feed setup as well.

Aside from Palm, we’re looking for all the big names to show off their up-and-coming products at CES Las Vegas 2009. HTC will be at CES to show off their latest wares, and we may see some exciting stuff from Samsung and LG. Make sure you keep checking back for IntoMobile’s hit-by-hit coverage of the event!

CrunchGear got an exclusive information from a trusted source about Palm (NSDQ: PALM)’s upcoming CES announcement. Palm’s new OS aka “Nova” is described as “amazing,” boasting full software market a la Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) AppStore alongside Palm’s classic PIM suite.

The device that will run the new operating system is “iPhone-like” and comes with a full QWERTY keyboard that slides down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen. A mock-up above should explain you how this could look like…

And that’s about all we know at this stage. If everything goes as planned, we’ll see Palm returning to the “game” starting from this Thursday, when they’ll go all official with the new device and OS at the CES. Guess that $100 million injection helped a lot.

[Via: CrunchGear]

The latest Zunephone rumours are nixing any hope of new hardware from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), but all signs are pointing to a Windows Mobile service which will bring all the music goodies of the Zune to smartphones. Gizmodo is sticking to their guns that the previously-rumored Pink is actually a software platform rather than hardware, and odds are good that we’ll see it at CES; Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has a keynote to make, which pretty much seals the deal. The real question here is “is a software platform better than hardware?” We were in a similar position in the early Android days with rumours abound of a GPhone, and it makes sense to tap into that huge installed base of HTC devices, so it might turn out alright, but the fantasy of the Zune device evolving to something bigger and better is just too cool to let go.

[via Mobility Site]

Just like Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s handset division, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) needs a miracle to stay alive. Apparently, the Treo-maker thinks it’s onto something, or at least their CES 2009 e-flyer says so. What are they planning to launch? They say it’s “all that Palm New-ness you’ve been waiting for.” What exactly they’re talking about, it’s hard to tell at this stage. I just hope they have much more than Roteo to show us. We really need to be impressed by Palm. C’mon folks, get your act together – we need another strong player in the smartphone market and we hope it could be you!

[Via: Engadget]

LG is all proud to announce that three of their handsets were honored with CES 2009 Innovations Awards. Among the awarded products are:

• LG Dare (VX9700) – which features a 3-inch touchscreen that is enabled with handwriting recognition and tactile feedback, 3.2 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach certified lens, and much more. The Dare is also a “Best of Innovations” honoree.
• LG Vu (CU920) — one of AT&T (NYSE: T)’s flagship handsets for their mobile TV service. Features touchscreen, Bluetooth, and more.
• LG Invision (CB630) – the smallest mobile TV-capable phone in the U.S. which combines easy access to TV shows with the latest technologies in a stylish design.

In addition to handsets, LG Solar car kit/speaker phone (HFB-500) was also honored with CES 2009 Innovation Award, and so were 10 other products in other, non-wireless-related categories (video displays, video components, home theater speakers, home appliances, computer accessories and audio components). As we don’t care about those, you’ll have to read about them on some other site.

Way to go LG!