No one takes Hello Kitty phones seriously. At least, until now. The Hello Kitty OKWAP A316 offers 3G connectivity in addition to GSM tri-band 900/1800/1900 support. An actual serious phone with a pink kitty, that will still go with your Hello Kitty purse.

Aside from the specs above, it’s pretty ordinary, featuring a 2.2″ LCD display, a 2-megapixel camera, and up to 2GB of external memory. A built-in MP3 player and Chinese/English dictionaries will help you buy even more Hello Kitty stuff when abroad. It also features a built-in Hello Kitty menu with animations, wallpaper and ringtones.

Smartphones are booming today despite the fact that the economy is worse than sitting through an episode of Dancing with the Stars (ok so maybe the economy isn’t that bad). Despite the fact that computer and electronics sales are down, sales of smartphones are still growing nicely. Some analysts say that’s because consumers are looking to devices that can fill multiple needs, which the average smartphone can.

T-Mobile users will soon have a new smartphone that they can choose called the Sidekick LX. The LX is T-Mobile’s first 3G enabled Sidekick and integrates social networking applications Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter in a bundle. Other features include built-in GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and a integrated music player.

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.

Of all the people I know who use cell phones, the single most common application they use is texting. A few of my friends text pretty much constantly and prefer texting to voice calls, which many users do. For the heavy text user, a phone that is designed for easy texting is necessary.

Kyocera has announced two new phones that are aimed at heavy text users and have a low price. The first of the two handsets is the Kyocera G2GO M2000 slider. A full QWERTY keyboard slides out in landscape mode for easy texting. The device supports Bluetooth, SMS, EMS, MMS, IM, and POP3/IMPA email. A 1.3-megapixel camera phone is built-in and memory expansion is up to 8GB with a microSD card.

Kyocera intro’d two new CDMA phones, the G2GO M2000 & Laylo M1400, at CTIA 2009. Both are sliders on the budget end of the spectrum. The Kyocera G2GO M2000 sports a 2.4-inch display. Some main features include e-mail, speakerphone, messaging, 1.3-megapixel camera, microSD card slot, WAP browser, voice dialing, personal organizer, Bluetooth with stereo, 500-contact phone book, 3G support and of course, a music player.

The Kyocera Laylo M1400 features a slide-out standard numeric keypad, 2.2-inch display, Bluetooth, 500-contact phone book, VGA camera, text and multimedia messaging, speaker-independent voice recognition, speakerphone, WAP browser, instant messaging, personal organizer and a voice memo recorder.

Motorola must be feeling good about themselves, because they switched up the name a little bit and it isn’t in all caps. But they lose some points for originality since this phone is so similar to the original RAZR. Do they want to sell phones or not?

We’re guessing these aren’t going to move all that well. The Motorola Ruby aka VE1, will feature a 5 megapixel camera and a flip phone design. That’s about all we know.

Acer launches the Tempo line of mobile phones. The four new phones include the X960, F900, M900 and DX900. They are all touch-enabled and based on the Windows Mobile OS. The first set of devices will be based on the existing version of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS.

The M900 comes with a QWERTY keyboard, a 3.8-inch screen, and a fingerprint scanner. It also has HSDPA (High-Speed Download Packet Access) support, built-in GPS (Global Positioning System), and a 5-megapixel camera. The F900 also comes with a 3.8-inch screen and features a 3.2-megapixel camera, and you also get faster uploads using HSUPA (High-Speed Uplink Packet Access) and support for Wi-Fi. Both phones will start shipping at the end of March or the beginning of April.

Casio is a name more associated with watches and Hello Kitty phones than quality cell phones, but that doesn’t mean they can’t deliever one. This new 5 megapixel shooter from Casio is known as the Exilim C721, keeping the name of Casio’s line of digital cameras.

It features autofocus capability and a high resolution WVGA rotating display that makes it more natural to capture images while using a phone. The image quality and features won’t be as good as a standalone digital camera, but what are you gonna do?

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.

Looks like Acer’s smartphone strategy at Mobile World Congress will involve at least two handsets. The DX650 would be a unique dual-sided phone with a dedicated number pad and small screen on the back to make calls easier. It will sport a 2.8-inch touchscreen and Windows Mobile 6.1 providing full app support on the phone’s front. The DX650 should also have GPS and a camera. 3G over HSPA and Wi-Fi are assumed.

The X960 looks like a more conventional 2.8-inch touchscreen phone and is known to have a fast 533MHz ARM processor and a front-facing camera for video calls to complement a back 3.2-megapixel shooter. It also runs Windows Mobile and carries HSPA-based 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi.

Some concepts are so pie in the sky out there all you can do is shake your head, while others are downright realistic. We’ll leave it up to you to figure out which category this one falls into. I think we can all agree that we’d love to see this one happen asap.

Some specs include: Titanium and Glass, OLED screen, 3G, GPS, Front camera for iChat, Removable battery, 3.2 Megapixel camera, Video, 32 GB. As long as we’re talking fantasy here, why not a projector or at least a slide out extender that enlarges the screen.

Everyone has a cell phone today, which is why people were so excited when phones gained the ability to take pictures and play music. That meant the majority of us had cameras on us at all times and music players wherever we went.

Nokia has announced a new mobile phone called the N79 Active that adds a new feature that fitness fans will love. The device features a Polar Bluetooth WearLink heart rate belt. The belt sends heart rate data directly to the N79.

It was previously announced that Samsung’s Armani Night Effect would be available for 300€ on November 2008 in Europe. As for other regions, we have no idea. There’s some good news for people in the UK however. The Samsung Armani Night Effect is available now in the UK, from January 9th 2009.

The phone comes with 2.2-inch AMOLED display screen, 3.2-megapixel camera, 120 MB internal memory, microSD card slot and supports HSDPA/GSM network. It’s by no means the top of the range in handsets, but it’s focus is on the beauty of simple design and ease of use.

For a long time one of the things that had people upgrading to new handsets was an integrated camera. Camera phones today are so common that the sole addition of a camera isn’t a draw to one handset over another.

However, the vast majority of camera phones on the market share something in common – horrible performance for taking images. Even the iPhone has a bad camera that often takes grainy and dark images. For mobile phone users looking for a handset with great picture quality the coming Samsung i8510 may be just what they need.

Mobiado is famous for its range of high-end cell phones, and the Professional 105GMT Gold handset is their latest. They call it “the expression of mechanical perfection, mastering of aesthetic details, and the integrity of consistent craftsmanship.”

The 105GMT Gold is made from single piece of sapphire crystal, ebony wood and a CNC-machined frame with a 24-carat gold coating on top. The keypad is made from sapphire crystal too, and hand painted with gold. What makes the Professional 105GMT Gold phone stand out from the rest of these gilded luxury phones is that it features a watch mechanism at the base of the case. No idea on price, but since it will be limited to just 50 units worldwide, expect to pay a small fortune.