ZTE USA is bringing to the United States what it says is its first handset, which will be available through MetroPCS. It’s called the ZTE C88 and MetroPCS is pricing it at around $140.

The ZTE C88 is very much your garden variety flip phone and won’t excite you much if you seek advanced features. It does have a rather sleek look to it, which is nice, and operates at the PCS and Cellular bands (1900 and 850 MHz), according to ZTE. You’ll also find a two-inch screen and Bluetooth as part of the offering.

Cricket Communications is unveiling as part of its line up of consumer mobiles a new entry level model. It is called quite simply the Cricket EZ and prices at around $50.

The Cricket EZ is a typical candy-bar style cell phone developed by CalComp and equipped with VIA Telecom’s cdma2000 1xRTT baseband processor. It measures 4- x 1.7- x 0.5-inches and sports a 128×128 color LCD display. It comes with polyphonic ringtones and wallpapers.

LG announced ahead of an upcoming mobile phone conference a new phone which looks rather stylish. It is called the LG-KF510 – no word on specific pricing or region availability at this point.

The LG-KF510 is described by LG as an “extremely slim slider phone.” It has a metal frame, tempered glass and will be available in two colors – gray and red. It will reportedly also offer “advanced touch technology.”

Verizon is adding a new color to its line up of Blackberry 8830s. Those wanting a little flair might find they like this red variation of this particular Blackberry model, available for around $300 after a rebate and two-year agreement.

New red color aside, this particular Blackberry 8830 World Edition Smartphone works much like any other Blackberry of its type. It is targeted towards world travelers, supporting EV-DO/GPRS network connections and GSM/GPRS (900/1800 MHz). It also has a large high-resolution color display and trackball navigation, among other external features.

This is the most convenient way to see how much “juice” remains in a device. Juice being battery life and in this case battery life being displayed with liquid. We don’t have many details, but this flask phone from NEC looks like it is liquid-powered and touch-screened. This one is so far out there that it must be a prototype.

According to NEC, it’s going to be released sometime in 2008, if you can believe that. It doesn’t get much cooler then being able to watch the liquid inside drain as you’re using the phone, so you can see how much power you have left. (Okay, that’s a lame hobby. But the concept is awesome.) Hopefully it will be available here in the U.S. The colors are obviously very woman friendly.

Skyfire is a new mobile browser that promises a nicer browsing experience on your mobile phone as well as speed and simplicity. Right now it’s in private beta mode and just available to those with a US phone number.

According to the site, the browser can go anywhere and get anything, which would make it a nice step up in mobile browsing. Supposedly it just like browsing on your PC. Check out a demo of Skyfire after the jump. If it’s even half as good as they claim, users are going to be very happy indeed. At least it has a cool name. Things always sound cooler with fire.

P-Per was awarded for the Red Dot Concept Design. It’s designed by Chocolate Design Agency and is a simple mobile phone concept with features that were supposed to be incompatible: simple, advanced, green and unique.

Modeled after the E-Paper slap bracelet, it’s made of only 4 layers of sustainable materials, the “1 function, 1 part, 1 material” rule makes it easy to disassemble the materials for recycling. Too good to be true? Maybe not. This might be the best phone ever. It has a transparent display for camera mode and a browser that spans the entire surface of the display. Check out a video here and be thoroughly impressed.

From India Sony Ericsson brings us word of two new mobile phones with built-in AM/FM radios and speakers. These mobiles are known as the R300 Radio and R306 Radio.

Simply put, these two Sony Ericsson cell phones let you listen to AM/FM radio. Preset buttons on the front of each let you switch between favorite stations. The built-in speakers, meanwhile, work best when the phone is set on its side. Sound from these speakers can be upgraded with a volume boost and also 3D sound enhancement.

Building on the appeal of the T610 mobile phone, Sony Ericsson today launched a couple of new candy bar handsets that throw a little more style into the business mix of mobile phones with the T270 and the T280.

Both 13mm thin pocket-sized handsets are basically the same aside from one of them featuring a 1.3 megapixel camera and the other does not. Launching a new mobile phone without a built-in camera is almost unheard of these days but Sony Ericsson says that the T270 model has the “all business” person in mind who just needs the essentials. With camera phones becoming more popular some corporations, including one I used to work for, has banned the use of mobile phones that have cameras built in. For those situations the T270 is well positioned.

The BlackBerry Pearl has been coming out in a number of new colors lately and we had heard earlier this month that the latest will be this new pink model with Verizon. We knew it was coming soon and today Verizon Wireless along with Research In Motion (RIM) announced that the Pearl in Pink is coming to Verizon stores and online starting tomorrow (Friday).

Gone are the days of smartphones lacking style and color according to Verizon as they describe the pink BlackBerry Pearl 8130 as “chic and sophisticated”, and it still packs all the same communication features of it’s bland siblings and Verizon’s tools via the EV-DO network. The pink version, just like the others can browse the web with the Verizon wireless broadband connection, has a speakerphone, 2 megapixel camera, media player, external microSD memory card slot, wireless Bluetooth and that not-quite-QWERTY keyboard.

LG launched the Viewty in Europe just less than three months ago back in November and has already sold more than 550,000 of these camera/phone combos since. After some research the folks at LG have come to the conclusion that having just a single color available for the Viewty just isn’t enough and today they are announcing that they’ll be bringing a number of new color choices to market starting with this Dark Silver model. Aside from the new color the mobile device is basically the same aside from an improved jog wheel to make navigation just a little easier.

The LG Viewty is a mobile phone combined with a 5.0 megapixel camera, 3-inch touch screen display, image stabilization, auto focus, 120 frames per second video recording and a built in media player not to mention the ability to make and receive calls.

Nokia is out today with word of a new design focused mobile for the fashion focused in us all. It is called the Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism and you’ll find this sweet looking cellphone hitting Europe soon.

The Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism has what Nokia describes as a “seamless diamond-cut design with a crystal centre key.” The phone was designed by Frederique Daubal and includes wallpaper inspired by him as well. It sports a large OLED screen as well.

The F705i is the world’s slimmest, waterproof 3G cellphone at 13.7mm thick. The Fujitsu handset can survive in up to 1-meter of water submersion for 30 minutes.

The F705i features Super Clear Voice and Super Clear Mike technology, therefore it automatically adjusts volume settings in response to ambient noise levels. It will also feature a 1.3MP camera with Quick Zoom functionality, allowing users to increase and decrease on-screen text size with a single button. The F705i is 106×49×13.7mm tall, weighs in at 111g and will give you 170-minute of talk time, or 100-minutes of video calling, all on a single charge. No one is sure yet if we will see this in the States, but if you plan on spending a lot of time underwater it might be worth tracking one down.

Polymer Vision this afternoon revealed that it is now producing the Readius, a device they are billing as the world’s first phone with foldable display. It’s more advanced than Amazon’s Kindle and uses a 5-inch e-paper display that replicates the sharpness of ink and tucks into the main body for portability, creating a much smaller profile than any other e-book reader available.

It’s also a full-fledged phone. The Readius can make calls and connect to the Internet in the US and most other 3G-capable areas of the world. This will allow live RSS reading as other real-time information. The device also supports ActiveSync for synchronizing contacts and e-mail with Microsoft Exchange servers and audiobooks, music playback, and basic games stored on microSDHC cards up to 8GB in size. With the e-paper display, it can last for as long as 30 hours for reading and longer than many phones when it comes to calls.

If you’re a cell phone manufacturer and you want to appeal to billions of Chinese smokers, the answer seems fairly obvious. Design a cell phone that resembles a pack of cigarettes, complete with authentic warning label. The real kicker is that the battery case slides open to reveal a compartment that holds seven real cigarettes.

The phone runs on dualband GSM, takes microSD cards, plays MP3, has a color screen and a VGA camera on the side. If you’re willing to pay $175 you will get a VIP kit that contains the phone, a pack of Chonghwa branded cigarettes and a lighter. As if cigarettes weren’t bad enough, now they will have the added benefit of cell phone radiation brewing in their little compartment.