Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia’s E75, the company’s latest dual-keyboarded, unlocked slider smartphone, is now shipping. The E75 features advanced e-mail aggregation, which lets users consolidate all of their business, personal, and Web-based accounts into one interface. It includes support for expandable views, folders, and HTML messages.

The E75 also works with Ovi Files for over-the-air file sync and Nokia Maps for voice-enabled turn-by-turn GPS navigation. It also works with Nokia’s N-Gage gaming platform, which marks the first E-series business smartphone in Nokia’s lineup to do so.

The handset includes a 2.4-inch QVGA LCD and a 3.2-megapixel camera (with LED flash and auto-focus) that can also record 640-by-480 videos at 30 frames per second. The E75 is available direct for $529.99 at Nokia stores and online at www.nokiausa.com.

There’s no way to watch Microsoft’s keynote address at CTIA Wireless today without hearing “iPhone. Apple. iPhone. Apple,” like the whispering voices in the background on Lost. Of course, Microsof’t’s Robbie Bach and Jim Wilson never mentioned either of those words during their keynote presentation, as they demoed a mobile OS whose navigation and interface work almost identical to the iPhone’s.

Wilson kept a straight face while showing the finger-swiping, double tap to zoom, and Start button on the Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. Bach played it straight while talking about how Microsoft is building a consumer tech ecosystem that involves a user’s PC, TV, phone, and syncing service, and when talking about how excited he was that EA Mobile’s Sim City was coming to Windows Mobile.

The only overt mention of Apple came when Bach showed a Windows commercial in which an attractive young girl goes laptop shopping and decides she’s “not cool enough to be an Apple user.”

I’m a Windows Mobile expatriate who defected to the iPhone, so maybe this is all in my head, but the entire keynote presentation appeared to be Microsoft talking up all the features they’d cribbed from Apple, knowing full well that the audience was in on it.

If I were better at video editing, I’d splice the clips of Bach and Smith demoing iPhone-esque features and put together a mock Apple commercial for YouTube.

Anyway, sorry for the diversion. Now go back to reading Sascha’s excellent CTIA coverage.

Why is it so hard to find a really simple cell phone in the USA? A few phones say they’re tailored to the needs of people who want very simple, easy phones, but I only know of three good ones: the Samsung Jitterbug, the Samsung Knack, and the Clarity Life.

At CTIA 2009 today I saw the excellent line of simple phones from Doro, a Swedish manufacturer devoted to creating easy-to-use communication devices. The Doro HandlePlus 326i is a very simple voice phone with a large keypad and four speed dial buttons. They also have a more advanced model that supports SMS, and an even simpler model that only does speed dial.

The most difficult thing about the Doro phones is finding them. None of the major cell phone carriers sell them. But you can get the HandlePlus 326i through a store called Independent Living for $169.95 for use with AT&T or T-Mobile, or through the small wireless carrier Centennial Wireless, which covers parts of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. Centennial is selling the Doro HandleEasy 330, the SMS-capable model, for $39.99 with a contract. AT&T and T-Mobile should follow.

Insurgent watch-phone maker Neutrano is back, and they’ve got two new models of the watch phone we originally saw at CES.

The more attractive model (pictured at left) has a stainless-steel body, and either a leather or metal band. The phone has a touch screen with four icons at the bottom that jump you to the SMS program, the dialer, the MP3 player and the 1.3-megapixel camera. There’s a lot of clicking on very tiny icons and buttons involved, so the Wristfone has a stylus which snaps into its band. The phone works on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks, but you have to bring your own SIM card.

Neutrano CEO Gary Rotman also showed us an early prototype of a second model, which detaches from its band so it can be held up to the ear. You can talk on this one like you talk on a regular phone, and then just snap it back into its band. It’s pretty big and clunky right now, though.

The stainless steel model is coming out on June 15 for between $300-400, Rotman said. He’s currently looking for retailers to sell the device.

Beginning today in Atlanta, AT&T announced that it will offer a variety of ultra-portable netbooks with
built-in AT&T 3G wireless capabilities starting at $49.99 with the purchase of AT&T “Internet at Home and
On the Go” broadband services.

The company said in a statement that it is also offering similar mini laptop promotional
rates with the purchase of AT&T DataConnect plans in eight AT&T
retail locations in the Philadelphia area.

For some inexplicable reason, AT&T is calling the machines “mini laptops.” But the lineup, which consists of the Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and LG Xenia, should put to rest any ideas that they’re somehow different than netbooks. Here’s a rundown of the pricing, as per the company statement: