Hasta La Gadget!

What you’re looking at on the left is 64GB. That’s a 32GB MicroSD card on the right, as comparison. At CTIA Wireless today, SanDisk showed off their latest high-capacity portable memory, including the new $199 32GB MicroSD that’s now on sale.

What does this have to do with Windows Phone 7? Well, as we learned last week, WP7 devices won‘t be allowed to have removable memory. That doesn’t mean WP7s have to lack storage, though. The chip on the left is a variety of SanDisk memory card that can be embedded in a phone – and where standard MicroSDs top out at 32GB, this one can hold up to 64GB.
That means Windows Phone 7s – and any other phone, for that matter – could be implanted with up to 64GB, provided the manufacturer is willing to spring for it. What would you store in 64GB on your phone?

T-Mobile today announced that their super-high-speed HSPA+ network has expanded from Philadelphia to parts of New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, the Las Vegas Convention Center and Strip areas, and west suburban Washington DC, with Los Angeles coming soon.

As I found in hands-on tests last month, HSPA+ delivered blazing speeds of up to about 7.5 megabits/sec when I used it with its only current device, the T-Mobile WebConnect Rocket USB modem. But HSPA+ also boosts speeds on standard 3G devices – I found speeds on a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G would up to triple when I entered the HSPA+ zone.

Over 200 million people in the US are now covered by T-Mobile 3G, T-Mobile senior vice president of engineering and operations Neville Ray said. Over 10,000 of T-Mobile’s 47,000 cell sites have fiber backhaul already, which will help support the massive data usage of HSPA+. T-Mobile plans to cover over 100 metro areas with HSPA+ by the end of 2010, Ray said. Half of that footprint will be available by midyear, Ray said.

SanDisk on Monday announced that it would begin shipping the much-talked-about 32GB microSD card. The card would allow any compatible phone or mobile device with a microSD slot to carry 32GB of music, movies, and other media on one very tiny card.

“With the large volume of photos, videos, and music that consumers create and carry around, a high-capacity memory card is a must-have component of today’s smartphone,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO of SanDisk, in a statement. “This is the highest-capacity card of its type, and SanDisk is pleased to be the first to ship such an advanced product.”

The new 32GB card carries a suggested retail price of $199.99, but most likely that price will fall as online retailers fight for the lowest price. Comparatively, customers can get a new SanDisk 16GB microSD card from a retailer on Amazon.com for less than $40. The card will be available for purchase soon on SanDisk.com for U.S. and European customers, with worldwide availability coming in April.

At this week’s CTIA trade show in Las Vegas, BlueAnt represented its Bluetooth headset and accessories line by launching the durable T1 headset and an Android app for its Q1 headset. First up is the T1 headset, a rugged Bluetooth device with new noise cancellation technology. The headset features removable silicon covers that protect the handset from accidental damage. It also has caller name announce, a new feature that reads out the names of incoming callers and has a text-to-speech engine that can store up to 2,000 phone book entries.

The T1 headset is the first to include “Wind Armor Technology,” noise cancellation software that supposedly delivers clear audio in wind speeds up to 22 mph. BlueAnt claims it is the “best wind noise reduction of any Bluetooth headset on the market.” PCMag.com will certainly test out these claims when we review the unit. BlueAnt says the T1 will offer 6 hours of talk time and 120 hours of standby time. The device will have a suggested retail price of $79.99.

On the software side of things, BlueAnt is offering up a new Android app specifically designed for its Q1 headset. The main purpose of the app is to allow the user to listen to their text messages through the headset, which the company claims is a first. Those with phones running custom Android builds like MotoBlur on the Motorola Devour or Motorola CLIQ are out of luck, as the app only works with Android 2.0 and 2.1. The app is available for download on BlueAnt’s Web site or via the Android Market.