Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung has announced three new Bluetooth headsets, all of which retail for under 100 bucks, that will hopefully improve on its most recent model’s ineffective noise cancellation.

The Samsung WEP470 is a small, lightweight headset with background noise filtering and echo cancellation. It’s not a dual-mic design, but claims to offer the same benefits due to its packet loss concealment technology. It also includes an LED battery indicator, power switch, and crystal ear hook for $39.99.

The WEP850 (pictured), meanwhile, offers a minimalist design with a true dual-mic configuration for improved noise cancellation and echo reduction for $69.99.

Finally, the complex $89.99 WEP870 offers everything the WEP850 does, plus multi-connection technology for pairing two Bluetooth devices simultaneously. It comes in chrome and graphite, a detachable stereo earbud for listening to music, and the ability to switch between music listening and incoming or outbound calls. It also has a tiny LCD screen that displays battery level, call status, and connection status. All three are available beginning today at www.samsung.com/accessories.

As a southpaw myself, the arrival of Left-Handers Day on August 13 every year is a cause for celebration. At least in the tiny office where I spend my days. Here, however, I am free from the tyranny of right-handed designers (and nightmarish, righty-designed college desks).

Take Google, for example. I love my Google Android phone (the MyTouch 3G) but it has one fatal flaw: in landscape mode, the display refuses to flip. I’m stuck navigating with my inferior right hand. (Curse you, right hand, and your inferior dexterity!) Do no evil, eh, Google? Lies!

Apple, however, is a bastion of creativity and intelligence, long the domain of the 8 to 10 percent of us blessed with a dominant left hand. Unsurprisingly, my wife’s iPod nano easily flips back and forth, depending on the orientation, and allows me to click through with impunity. This, clearly, is why Apple controls the market for MP3 players.

Microsoft and Nokia on Wednesday announced an alliance that will bring Microsoft mobile software to Nokia devices next year.

Both companies, however, stressed that they remain committed to their respective operating systems – Windows Mobile and Symbian.

“We will develop Microsoft Office Mobile and related communication and collaboration software and services for Nokia smartphones,” Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft Business Division, said during a call with reporters and analysts. “We will market these solutions to our partners and over the longer term, we will jointly design a range of new user experiences for future Nokia devices.”

Nokia will first offer these services via its Eseries business phones, but will eventually expand to “many other Nokia smartphones,” said Kai Öistämö, executive vice president for Nokia Devices, though he could not provide details on specific phones.

As a first step, Nokia has renewed its license with Microsoft Exchange Active Sync.

Next year, Nokia will start shipping smartphones loaded with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile. Other Office applications and related software and services will be added in the future, including the ability to view, edit, create, and share Office documents on more devices, enterprise instant messaging and optimized conference calling, mobile access to intranet and extranet portals via SharePoint, and enterprise device management via Microsoft System Center.

“What we have shared today is by no means the full extent of the alliance,” said Öistämö. “This is much more than just putting Microsoft software on Nokia smartphones.”

So what else should we expect?

Sprint is readying 17 additional cities for its fledgling 4G WiMAX service. The new additions for the rest of 2009 include Boise, Bellingham, Charlotte, Greensboro, Maui, Raleigh, Salem, and eight smaller cities in Texas.

The new markets will join the initial batch of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, and Seattle. All of the above mirror what Clearwire had already announced last week for its identical CLEAR WiMAX offering.

Sprint reaffirmed plans to launch service in Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. sometime in 2010.

Congress, the FCC, and the news media might care about handset exclusivity and whether or not you can get the iPhone from any carrier, but for the average consumer, price and available features are more important than specific phones when it comes to choosing a provider.

The third quarter of 2006 was the last solid quarter without any iPhone-related news, but despite the smartphone’s popularity, a recent Nielsen survey of 25,000 mobile users found that the availability of specific phones was not among the top reasons for choosing a carrier.

Roger Entner, an analyst with Nielsen, compared customers responses from the Q306 survey with responses from the first quarter 2009. He found that price was the top factor three years ago, and retains that spot today.

But while network quality and reputation/recommendation held on to the top two and three spots in 2006, they lost out this year to the availability of a family plan and payment options.

“At first glance, the most striking difference between 2006 and more recent data is what changed and what did not,” Entner wrote in a blog post. “Price remains the most important factor in choosing wireless service. Yet, even with the prominence of the iPhone, surprisingly the availability of a specific phone stayed flat as the seventh most important factor.”

Handset importance did increase from 2.9 percent in 2006 to 6.4 percent in 2009, but that was not enough to increase its ranking. Instead, families want the option of cheap family plans as well as pre-paid or free in-network calling.

This news is good news for pre-paid providers like Tracfone, unlimited providers like Boost Mobile, Metro PCS and Leap, and providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which have larger free calling circles, Entner said.

The biggest surprise? The dip in importance when it comes to network quality — from number two to number five. “As a testament to the success of its advertising message, the number of consumers who perceive Verizon Wireless as having the best mobile network has shot up over the last two years and it leads its closest competitor now by an almost 2:1 margin,” Entner wrote.

A complete run-down of the list after the jump.