Smartphone Experts–Smartphone Fan

General Mobile — maker of the DSTL1 dual-SIM Android phone — has always walked a fine line between KIRF and originality with its phones, and its latest batch is no different. Normally it’s easy to resist a device widely regarded as a knockoff (for most of us, anyhow), but in the case of the newest model here, General Mobile’s actually managed to answer a question HTC’s failed to so far: where the hell is the HD2 with Android? The so-called “Touch Stone” (deep breaths, Palm) rings true to many of the actual HD2′s specs, from the 5 megapixel camera to the 4.3-inch capacitive WVGA display, but this sucker adds an “optional” analog TV tuner (which won’t do countries with digital transitions any good) and Android 2.0 atop an ARM9-based PXA935 core. Sadly, this phone doesn’t quite exist yet — we were shown a dummy model today with the promise of retail toward the end of the year, at which point HTC and others will undoubtedly have phones like the Supersonic on the shelf.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 was announced a LONG time ago but still hasn’t been released. At Mobile World Congress the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro were also announced, so now we’ve got THREE unreleased Xperia phones. Not for long, because BGR is saying that the X10 is 100% heading to AT&T in the April to May timeframe.

Well isn’t this a treat! We’re used to delays and rarely early arrivals, but TELUS has just surprised us by making the Motorola Milestone available ahead of schedule. The Milestone is better known in the United States as the Motorola Droid and sales figures have been impressive to say the least – I’m sure the pattern in Canada will continue. So how  much will it cost you?

Add another manufacturer to the Android bandwagon: Lumigon . The company is starting their Android initiative with an incredibly creative set of offerings with a feature we haven’t seen before on Android handsets… slide-out T9 keyboards

Push another paper from the “rumor” filing cabinet into the one marked “official” – the HTC Legend just got official at the HTC Press Conference at Mobile World Congress 2010. There aren’t very many surprises here – but the unmistakeably Hero-ish look of the Legend, combined with the equally bold uniqueness make it a handset worth extra yearning. As we’ve told you before, the handset is a boldly modified HTC Hero on the design side with slight upgrades on the spec side

The parade of new Android Phones will soon continue. Although we don’t yet have details on the devices, ZTE just issued a press release announcing that in addition to launching the “ZTE Bingo” brew based phone, they’ll also unveil FIVE Android Phones at Mobile World Congress. Based on their verbage, it seems like the majority of the company’s offerings will be focused on Europe.

Acer’s announcement of the Liquid E was pretty disappointing so we’re happy that’s not ALL they had planned.

Opera is expected to make an announcement at MWC introducing a new version of their Android App.

We just told you about the super-slick looking and ultra powerful Samsung i8520… you know, the one with the projector, 8MP camera, and Super AMOLED screen. Well that phone just got a name… the Samsung Halo. This isn’t 100% official yet but you can’t get much closer to the truth than Engadget did: After quizzing a team of perplexed executives of increasing rank, a VP from Samsung’s mobile division finally told us that it’ll be revealed as the “Halo” tomorrow when the show floor opens