Windows Mobile 6.1

At least through Sprint, that is. Today, the wireless carrier, trying to be more Ferris Bueller and less Cameron Frye, announced that it would be carrying both the HTC Diamond and the HTC Touch Pro, which feature that company’s TouchFlo 3D interface, one of the more innovative touchscreen interfaces from a consumer electronics company not named after fruit.

Varying little from the unlocked Diamond we reviewed in June, Sprint’s version of the touchscreen smartphone (which will retail for $249.99 with a 2-year contract and $100 rebate) features a 2.8 inch high-resolution VGA display, an Opera-powered browser, Wi-Fi, a customized YouTube application, a 3.2MP camera, and access to Sprint TV. From the early press images, Sprint has modified the UI a little bit, as the icons that run along the bottom of the screen are different from the unlocked version.

The Touch Pro is similar to the Diamond, but has a slide-out five-row QWERTY keyboard, and will be available on Oct. 19 for $299.99 (with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate). According to Sprint’s press release, the Touch Pro also features a microSD card slot (1 GB card included) and a business card scanner application.

Both phones, which run Windows Mobile 6.1, will also feature applications for e-mail, threaded messaging, photos, contacts, weather, and music, according to the press release. Neatest of all is the built-in accelerometer, which senses when the phone is being moved in space, and adjusts the screen to compensate. Let’s hope Sprint kept the really cool game that was on the unlocked version.

We’ll have hands-on with both the Diamond and the Touch Pro later today. Stay tuned.

Windows Mobile gets a welcome makeover with the arrival of version 6.1 of the smart phone operating system. A revamped, sliding-panel Today screen minimizes menu-digging and allows you to do everything from checking incoming e-mails and creating new appointments to playing your favorite tunes. Contextual soft-touch keys also helps to save users time.

Other convenient additions include streamlined text messaging, the ability to copy and paste from an e-mail or Internet Explorer Mobile window, and even multiple-message selection for sorting, deleting, or marking as “Read.” Last but not least is a Getting Started wizard that helps first-time smart phone owners set up their device and minimize the learning curve.

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We sat down this evening with Velocity Mobile to get an in-depth hands-on drive with its spankin’ new 103 and 111 series of smartphones.

When I first sat down at the table, I was impressed by the clean black finish on both of the phones, and each were about as appealing and eye catching as the original photos led them to be.

We have to hand it to Velocity Mobile for taking a shot at the smart phone industry which is currently being dominated by players that have been in the space for years. Like HTC, it’s also taking a stab at creating a new Windows Mobile 6.1 overlay to help improve the user experience on the 103. The 111 has the same Windows Mobile 6.1 look and feel, but offers a full QWERTY keypad that gives users the option to switch between a stylus/finger touchscreen or trackball/QWERTY combo for navigation.

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Move over RIM, Samsung, and HTC; there’s a new smart phone player on the block named Velocity Mobile. This startup, which is collaborating closely with notebook ODM giant Inventec, is making its world debut with two new Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional phones, the Velocity 103 and the Velocity 111.

Velocity Mobile needs to make a significant splash in order to compete with the big boys, and judging by the custom Windows Mobile interface Velocity calls “Odyssey: Phase 1″ and the super-suave shiny black exterior, this company’s wares are certainly going to tempt early adopters. We love the on-screen widgets that display the weather, date, time zone, and other at-a-glance information.

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Windows Mobile 6.1 is officially official and we’ve had our hands on a unit running Microsoft’s freshest mobile OS for quite some time now. We’re pleased with the improvements in the new, easier-to-navigate user interface, and we especially like the streamlined text messaging.

Check out our full review of the OS, which we gave four stars. We docked a star because, while the whole Windows Mobile experience is more consumer friendly, Internet Explorer still didn’t live up to our expectations. For one, it still drags and doesn’t have multimedia functionality, but Microsoft did attempt to improve the experience by adding a panning feature, which lets you zoom around a Web page and select a specific portion to view.

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