AT&T’s first Android phone won’t be shipping with Google Search. Instead, the Motorola Backflip’s home screen will feature a Yahoo Search widget, and the browser will run Yahoo searches by default. In fact it will be the first Android device with Yahoo as the main search engine.

Obviously appeasing Apple is high on AT&Ts priority list. We can’t really see what else this move does. It just says hey, we love Apple and fear them. There are four other AT&T Android phones coming soon, and we wonder if they will follow suit.

If you’re like us, you probably think that these constant ad battles between AT&T and Verizon are getting really old. Who can keep track anymore. Lawsuit is countered by lawsuit, then there’s a lull, then more ads slinging mud at each other.

Here’s AT&T’s latest. Another ad featuring Luke Wilson. The ad is all about the speed of AT&T’s network compared to Verizon. Why can’t they use this ad money and put it toward making their networks better? What’s next? The other half of the annoying Wilson brother duo rooting for the opposing team?

The holiday season is a good time to give someone in your family a new mobile phone. If they are still rocking that Razr from years ago, it’s time for an upgrade. Just be sure it is a family member you can trust to pay the bill and not run up the minutes.

AT&T has announced a new special deal for the holidays that offers a gob of Blackberry handsets at half off, and even the newer Blackberry devices are included. The sale covers the Bold 9700 and 9000 as well as the Curve 8900, 8520, 8320, and 8310 handsets.

For a long time only Europeans were able to take advantage of subsidized notebooks and netbooks with wireless carriers. The deals are now common in America as well, though the prices for the machines are typically not all that discounted compared to just buying the netbook outright.

LG has been offering its X120 netbook in Korea for a while now and has announced that the little machine is now coming to America. The netbook has a 10.1-inch screen, built-in webcam, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB HDD.

Pantech and AT&T have announced that the cool Pantech Impact feature phone has hit the AT&T wireless network. The handset is available in blue and pink colors and has a new form factor for the AT&T line.

The device has a touchpad for the number pad that has haptic feedback technology with vibration when the buttons are pressed. The phone also has a pair of LCD screens with one on the outside for dialing and one on the inside for videos and web surfing.

The Garmin nuvifone has been on our radar for a long time now and we already know most of the specs of the G60. What we really didn’t know was how much the device would cost and what carrier it would be offered on. AT&T and Garmin cleared up those questions today.

The Garmin nuvifone will hit AT&T at a price of $299 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a new 2-year agreement. The Nuvifone Premium connected Services for the device will cost $5.99 per month and include traffic updates, white pages, weather, movies, local events, fuel prices and more.

Over in Europe subsidized price notebooks and netbooks are very common with most of the major mobile providers offering all sorts of notebooks to users at discount prices. The caveat is that you have to sign away years of your mobile broadband freedom to get the deals.

Subsidized notebooks and netbooks aren’t that common here in the U.S., but they are starting to gain in popularity. AT&T already offers a subsidized price Acer Aspire One and the mobile provider has announced that it will now be offering a subsidized Dell Mini 10 and Lenovo S10 netbook at stores across the nation.

One of the things I remember most about road trips when I was a kid was that it only took about an hour before I was smacking my brother in the head as we drove down the road and dad was trying to reach over the seat to beat me. Things aren’t much different today; my kids last only about an hour on the road before things get rowdy.

Thankfully, today we have all sorts of entertainment devices for our cars to keep kids occupied. AT&T has announced the official launch of its CruiseCast mobile satellite TV service. The new service has launched with 19 different channels.

AT&T will be launching another smartphone from Hewlett-Packard. The iPAQ K3. The codename is “Obsidian”, the date is November 30. This new smartphone works on triband HSDPA as well as quadband EDGE.

Some other features include Windows Mobile 6.5 OS, a 2.8-inch QVGA display, a 2MP camera, a full QWERTY keyboard, a 256MB of RAM, a 512MB ROM, a microSD card slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, GPS and WiFi. No info on pricing at the moment.

Ralph de la Vega from AT&T has confirmed that the company has in fact been looking at lowering the cost of data plans. Instead of cutting the cost of unlimited access, the company plans to introduce lower priced plans with limited bandwidth.

“Right now we continue to study what is the best thing that is available, not just from an iPhone point of view, but what you can do to stimulate additional demand,” said de la Vega, adding, “[w]e view Apple as a strategic partner for us, a very good partner to have now and into the future.”

In Europe, the practice of subsidizing notebooks and netbooks on mobile carriers is very common. In the US, the practice is still relatively unknown. RadioShack offers a netbook bundled with mobile broadband, but it is one of the few such offers in the States.

AT&T has announced that it will be expanding its subsidized netbook offer and rolling the products out to its stores nationwide. The new expanded lineup will include Acer, Dell, and Lenovo netbooks all bundled with mobile broadband plans.

Most of us will agree that contracts required to get mobile phones today are not how we would prefer things work. I always wanted cellular service that worked like my old landline. I pay for what I use and if I don’t like the service, I change at will.

The closest we get to that sort of service with mobile phones are the pay-as-you-go plans like the AT&T GoPhone. AT&T has announced that the GoPhone now has an unlimited calling option that lets you call all you want for $3 per day.

The smartphone market is booming and complex, feature packed devices like the iPhone and the G1 may catch the eye of fans of technology. However, there is a large portion of the handset market that cares nothing for all the geeky features and complexity of the average smartphone.

For the non-techie group of mobile phone users Pantech has announced a new black version of its Breeze handset. We first saw the Pantech Breeze in silver last year when it debuted at AT&T. The new handset is the same thing with a black case that may keep its looks longer than the silver version.

We heard a lot about femtocells last year. A femtocell is a device that allows your cellular phone to connect to the Internet for calls to provide better coverage indoors. So far there have been a few of these femtocells launched.

AT&T has offered details on its first 3G femtocell it is calling the AT&T 3G MicroCell. The MicroCell requires a broadband Internet connection and will support up to 10 3G cell phones in a home or small office. Up to four simultaneous voice or data users are supported at once.

I was among the many who was hoping that the rumor that Walmart would be selling a $99 iPhone 3G was accurate. As it turned out Walmart did in fact get the iPhone 3G, but the price was only slightly less than other iPhone retailers.

However, your hopes of a $99 iPhone 3G aren’t completely dashed, at least not for a few more days. AT&T is currently offering refurbished iPhones while supplies last. The 8GB refurb handset will sell for the magic $99 number.