When it comes to smartphone most of them have the same bar or PDA style form factor. Those preferring to use a clamshell style phone don’t have many options with the current crop of smartphones. Clamshells are preferred by some people because they are more compact.

Alltel has announced that the Blackberry Pearl Flip 8230 handset will be available on its network starting in early May. The handset is a full Blackberry smartphone with the clamshell style and a SureType QWERTY keyboard underneath.

The slider known as the Samsung Trance will be hitting Verizon tomorrow. The phone will feature V CAST with Rhapsody and the VZ Navigator. Some other features include a 2.1-inch screen with a 176 x 220 resolution, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 16GB microSDHC memory card slot, 1GB of built-in memory and support for numerous media files including MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA.

Good phone to listen to music while completing other tasks. You’ll also get a 1.3-megapixel camera and Bang & Olufsen ICEpower speakers for great sound quality. Bluetooth as well.

According to Vodafone’s UK website, HTC’s Android-based Magic will be available on May 5th.

The new phone is the second Android phone to launch in the UK following T-Mobile’s HTC-made G1. It was originally due out on April 17th, but was delayed due to “a last minute hardware change”. If you need a refresher, some features include a 3.2-inch QVGA touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity as well as GPS.

This week Apple quietly announced plans to start selling aluminum 20-inch iMacs to qualified educational institutions for just $899. That means that qualified schools can pre-order an $899 20-inch iMac equipped with a 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB of memory, 160 GB hard drive, 8x SuperDrive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphic card.

The new configuration is replacing the $899 Apple 17-inch iMac sold to those same institutions since 2006. It allows institutions hit hard by tax revenue declines to continue to factor Macs into their refined budgets.

HTC makes some of the coolest smartphones on the market and is the maker behind the T-Mobile G1 running Android. HTC has all sorts of different smartphones with features like touch screens and other niceties.

HTC’s latest smartphone, the Touch Diamond, will be available starting today with Verizon Wireless through its business sales channels. The handset has a 2.76-inch touch screen display and uses Opera web browser for surfing the net. The device has a 3.2-megapixel camera and offers memory expansion via microSD cards up to 16GB.

Archos hasn’t said anything official yet, but there are leaks of the Archos 2 and 4 players, with the Archos 2 listed on Amazon. Don’t expect anything too Earth shattering here. They’re just another alternative to what the company already offers.

For $60 you’ll get 8GB of internal memory, a microSD memory card slot, 1.8″ display at 128 x 160 resolution and voice recording capability. Not bad for the price. The 16GB model will cost you more of course. We don’t know much about the Archos 4. Just that it has a 4″ display and up to 32GB of internal flash memory.

Camcorders are one of the many electronics devices that tend to travel with people when they go on vacation. The problem is that travelling can be very hard on items like camcorders that have sensitive components. Camcorders ideal for travelling also tend to have small dimensions that are easy to store in a suitcase.

Sony has announced a new camcorder called the HDR-TG5V that is small and has a rugged frame made from titanium. The camera is a dead ringer for the Sony TG7VE we reported earlier this week. A quick look at the specs shows that the two machines are indeed similar under the skin as well.

We love video games around here. Whether we’re playing the Xbox 360, the PS3 or even an old Atari 2600. We thought we would take a look at the history of gaming consoles from 1972 to the present. You grew up with the vintage consoles, you play the new ones, so take a walk down memory lane and revisit all your favorites from the massive list below.

Psystar might be in the middle of a court battle with Apple over the use of the Apple Mac OS X operating system, but that didn’t stop the Mac clone company from releasing a brand new Open Computer model on Tuesday.

The new model, the Open (3), will be “Smaller, Faster and Sexier” and includes Intel’s E7400 Core2Duo processor running at 2.8GHz, which is over 50% faster than the previous processor. They’ve phased out the mini-tower and opted for a “slim form-factor” that is 47% smaller.

The Sony Vaio P just came out and already it has sprouted a clone, the Vaino. At first glance, the Vaino seems to have better specs in certain areas, including a 10.2″ display, a faster Atom processor, 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a 1.3 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi connectivity and a multi-format memory card reader.

But what it comes down to is that no one wants to be carrying around such an obvious knock off. It ruins your tech cred. They should have just released the device under it’s own brand. One day maybe they will learn.

ASUS has us doing a triple take with its new Lamborghini VX5 laptop. The machine will sport a 1TB SSD, a Core 2 Quad CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 16-inch “Full HD” display.

You’ll also get a GeForce GT 130M graphics card with 1GB of GDDR3 memory, an illuminated “chiclet” style keyboard and a Blu-ray optical drive. It’s for those of us who don’t care about laptops with an astronomical price tag obviously, though the MSRP is yet to be announced.

One of the things I want most on my iPhone is expandable memory. Most smartphones include a microSD card slot that allows you to add more storage for music, images, and other files as you need to. Phones that are compatible with microSDHC cards can offer even more storage capacity with a single small card.

Kingston has announced a new microSDHC card that offers 16GB of storage capacity. According to Kingston, that is enough storage for more than 3,000 songs, over 9,000 images at 5-megapixel resolution and more than 16 hours of video.

The Ibiza Theatre is the first touchscreen player from the company that offers a cheaper alternative to Apple’s gadget line, but it surprisingly lacks Wi-Fi. Some features of the Ibiza Theatre include: 2.4″ 320 x 240 resolution display, Bluetooth, Integrated FM tuner, microSD memory card slot, Support for Real’s Rhapsody to Go service, Audible, MP3 and WMA audio support, and AVI and MPEG-4 video support.

Haier promises a 30-hour battery life, and we’re guessing that applies to audio playback and not video. The Ibiza Theatre should be shipping this spring in 8GB and 16GB flavors. They will retail for $110 and $130.

More powerful cameras mean that we need powerful storage solutions. Well, here’s the latest portable external hard drive photo manager from Digital Foci. It goes by the name of the Picture Porter 35 and the device features a 160GB+ hard drive, a 3.5 inch color LCD screen, an integrated card reader supporting CF, MMC, SD/HC, miniSD, Memory Stick, MS PRO, MS Duo, and xD-Picture cards, a USB host, and a TV or a projector output.

It’s not the most beautiful device we’ve ever seen, but it’s a great tool to backup your endless vacation photos and enjoy them. The Picture Porter 35 will be introduced at CES next week, but won’t be available until Summer of 2009. No price info yet.

The iPhone is one of the most desired smartphones on the planet and is at the top of the sales charts for all phones in the US. The latest phone to take aim at the iPhone has been announced by Nokia. As you expect the phone has a touchscreen and a few features that iPhone owners will wish they had.

The touchscreen is 3.5-inches and offers a 16:9 aspect ratio. Under the touchscreen is a slide out QWERTY keyboard for typing email and text messages on the go. The N97 has 32GB of onboard memory and a microSD card slot.