Windows Mobile 6.5.3 is one of the shadowy leaked builds that have popped up since Windows Mobile 6.5 devices began arriving in October. Adding support for capacitive touch, multi-touch and a variety of user interface improvements that replace legacy menu and navigation elements, Windows Mobile 6.5.3 is believed to be Microsoft’s attempt to improve on the lackluster 6.5 release while it readies Windows Mobile 7.

Aspen is part of Sony Ericsson’s GreenHeart line of environmentally friendly smartphones, which are built from recycled plastics and use water-based paints. For this reason, the company describes Aspen as a “business phone with a conscience,” although it’s unclear whether the device is actually sentient and able to discern between right and wrong.

For business users, Aspen features a QWERTY keyboard and offers users the ability to “view and edit office files easily and comfortably,” according to Sony Ericsson. Microsoft’s MyPhone service, which remotely wipes data from devices when they’re lost or stolen, is also part of the package.

Windows Mobile 6.5.3 has been hidden under the same shroud of secrecy that has obscured all of Microsoft’s mobile plans in recent months. Microsoft has been dropping hints about upcoming mobile related news at Mobile World Congress later this month and at MIX10 next month, but it’s anyone’s guess as to whether these will involve Windows Mobile 7.

The new Sony Ericsson Vivaz is the second installment in Sony Ericsson’s new lineup of communications entertainment smartphones, a mash-up of its well-known Walkman, Cybershot and messaging concepts. Like its Android sibling, the Xperia X10, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Symbian smartphone offers a new “human curvature” design philosophy. Sony Ericsson says this will be the way to instantly recognize this type of smartphone in the future, and if you’re looking for an all-in-one smartphone solution tailored to consumers, the Vivaz will be a smartphone to keep an eye on in the months ahead.

Customizable Vivaz UI

When we played with the Sony Ericsson Satio a couple of months ago, its user interface came across as a rich cell phone interface rather than a smartphone interface. With the introduction of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, however, a new and important tweak has been made: The five “home screen” panels first seen on the Satio have been extended and made more user-configurable on the Vivaz, including the ability to select Flash Lite content such as apps, games and animations.

Sony Ericsson has included Twitter and Facebook apps written using Flash Lite 3.0, and the manufacturer encourages third-party developers to offer Symbian and Flash content through its expanded PlayNow ecosystem, previously only available to music publishers.

This Android-based model will supposedly have a shape somewhat similar to the popular Motorola Droid, but without many of the high-end features.

Like its big brother, it will be a slider, with a landscape-oriented QWERTY keyboard. It will apparently have a smaller, lower-resolution screen than the Droid, though.

On this device’s front, next to the touchscreen, will be three touch-sensitive buttons and an optical trackpad, rather than a trackball or D-pad.

The Droid Devour will allegedly debut with Android OS 2.1, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system, and have the standard suite of software for connecting to Google services.

In addition, it will have support for Verizon’s EV-DO mobile broadband network, plus it will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The Devour is also allegedly going to have a 3 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headset jack, a GPS receiver, a microSD memory card slot, and a 1420 mAh battery.

Samsung have announced The Samsung Monte, a low-end touchscreen mobile phone that is expected to follow up on the success that Genio left off on.

The Samsung Monte has an equally humane name (as opposed to Vodafone’s recently announced 547) to the Genio and looks just as compact and smart from Dialaphone’s pictures.

The S5620 Monte has a WQVGA 3.0″ touchscreen display and is supported by 3G HSPDA. Monte will have 200Mb internal memory plus a MicroSD slot for expanding memory. And in terms of connectivity there is a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones, plus GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. A Touchwiz operating system (exampled in the video below) is expected on the Samsung Monte handset, and is expected to appear at MWC and released later in March.

The Good: This is a tri-band flip phone identical to the Samsung SGH-309 with the addition of Bluetooth and a different color scheme. It has a VGA camera on board with a variety of photographic options and picture resolutions. The phone can also be customized via a number of operational and thematic settings. Call quality is excellent both through the earpiece and when using the speakerphone.

The Bad: The phone is very pricy for the feature set. Both displays are hard to see especially in bright light. The keys are small and rather flat, making dialling by feel difficult and causing frequent mis-dials. Standby time is also disappointingly short, lasting just 3 days despite the rated 9.

The Bottom Line: This phone isn’t likely to win any beauty or technology awards anytime soon, and those wanting anything more than super call quality should probably look elsewhere.

The Good: The Samsung T409 is a mid-range phone with a simple feature set, featuring internal and external displays, a 1.3 megapixel camera, support for e-mail and the most popular instant messaging clients and a WiFi receiver for connecting to pre-configured wireless networks. For ease of use the phone has a number of programmable shortcut keys and a hotlist where five ‘favourite numbers’ can be listed for easy dialling.

The Bad: Despite a wide range of photographic options, the T409’s camera is disappointing with pictures appearing washed out and hazy. The speakerphone also suffers from poor sound quality.

The Bottom Line: This phone’s greatest asset has to be, without doubt, the wireless connectivity which allows users to browse the web, make and receive VoIP calls thus saving money, particularly on long distance calls. The phone is simple yet effective and is more than suitable for business and leisure consumers alike.

The Good: The Voyager also known as the VX10000, is one of LG’s first touch screen phones to target the US and includes a more iPhone-like interface based on that of the Prada phone; users can place calls, play AAC/MP3/WMA music, and take 2-megapixel photos almost exclusively from the screen. It offers a generous features set that includes EV-DO support, V Cast Mobile TV Bluetooth, a top-notch Web browser, and an integrated GPS application. And if that’s not enough, its call quality was excellent.

The Bad: The LG Voyager VX10000’s camera lacks such extra options as a flash and Wi-Fi, and its photo quality was below par. The touch screen can be clunky at times, and the streaming video quality and EV-DO connection speed were sporadic.

The Bottom Line: Though we had some minor complaints here and there, the Voyager’s sleek design, generous feature set and excellent performance make it the best LG messaging and multimedia phone by far. What we like most about this phone is the improvements LG has made to the Verizon Wireless interface. Verizon Wireless believes, that users like to learn an interface and then find it useful on the next phone they buy. We don’t buy it. Phones are improving too fast, with too many new features every season, and users want a phone that makes sense. Maybe it made sense to bury the touted HTML browser under the “Get It Now: News and Info” submenu in the past, but now, that’s the last place we’d look.

The Good: The T-Mobile Wing is a quad-band world handset with a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2 megapixel camera and is one of the first on the market to boast the new Windows Mobile 6 Professional Smartphone operating system. It also features the full Office Mobile suite which allows both creation and viewing of documents. There are a number of shortcut keys to frequent used applications, and the display effortlessly changes from portrait to landscape when deploying the QWERTY keyboard.

The Bad: With all this gadgetry on board, the handset is a little on the heavy side. Also, it sometimes behaves somewhat sluggishly, especially when multiple applications are open at the same time, which also takes a toll on battery life. Whereas the display is quite clear under normal operation, it can be difficult to read in direct sunlight.

The Bottom Line: T-Mobile has taken mobile productivity to the next level with the Wing, with a raft of useful features, enhancements and capabilities. However, its weight coupled with several bugs and performance issues give some pause for consideration.

The Good: T-Mobile has a history of producing and influencing the design of great phones, and the Dash, aka HTC Excalibur is no exception. It looks stylish with its silver bezel and curved edges, offers a host of connectivity options including Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi, has the Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone operating system and offers quad-band worldwide coverage.

The Bad: The inabilities to only read, and not create Word; Excel and PDF documents may be problematic for business users, however e-mail can be synced with another computer via Outlook Mobile. The 1.3 megapixel camera has a confusing interface and produces hazy, washed-out images. Also, the touch-sensitive volume control strip on the right side of the handset is a little fiddly and unresponsive at times.

The Bottom Line: All in all this is a great offering for the modern mobile user with an ideal balance of features for both productivity and entertainment. The long talk and standby times add extra appeal as does the integrated WiFi receiver.

The Good: The Samsung SGH-T219 is a lower model in the Samsung range geared towards business users. It features support for multimedia messaging and has a 500 contact storage capacity with its ample internal memory.

The Bad: Due to this phone being aimed at business users, it does not feature a camera to comply with the more and more businesses prohibiting camera phones in the workplace. The display is generally clear, although does become difficult to read in direct sunlight. Call quality is adequate; however there is some echo and distortion when using both the earpiece and speakerphone.

The Bottom Line: Whereas the red colour may be eye catching and make the phone stand out aesthetically, the basic feature set and poor call quality don’t really impress that much.