Is this the best Sprint and Samsung phone ever? Many of us think so. And it just got better. Thanks to the unveiling of the iPhone 3G with it’s $199 price tag, Sprint rethought a few things.

Like offering an extra $100 mail-in rebate which levels the playing field with AT&T. Apparently, current customers can buy the phone without renewing their 2-year contract, which is good news for those who want to switch carriers.

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a real fitness craze happening thanks in part to Wii Fit. Toshiba wants to do their part as well. The Toshiba Sportio is a new addition for Japanese carrier KDDi. Ironically, the phone is a fatty, but helps you stay fit with motion sensors counting the calories burned during a workout.

It also takes advantage of GPS to lay out your jogging route. It will stream music to compatible Bluetooth headphones with the ‘BEAT RUN’ function, which adjusts the tempo to you as you feel the burn. The Sportio sports a 2.2 inch TFT 240 x 320 screen, 2 Megapixel camera, GPS and 1 Seg Tuner. You’ll have your choice of five colors: orange, white, black, red and green.

You’re looking at the BlackBerry clamshell, dubbed the Kickstart. The Boy Genius has shared a handful of photos of the device and I know you can’t stop starring. BGR insists this isn’t fake. The phone has a Pearl-type keyboard, trackball navigation, and seems to have both an internal and external LCD screen. Nothing on specs, carrier, release date and all that jazz, but according to BGR it’s due before year’s end. We’ll keep you updated.

It’s hard to say how they did it, but it appears that somehow Telecom Italia Mobile has convinced Apple and Steve Jobs to offer the new upcoming 3G version of the iPhone to customers in Italy with quite a bit more leeway than we’ve seen here in the states. Not only will the iPhone not require that two-year service contract along with the purchase, but it will also come unlocked.

This is something that Apple has been very stringent about stateside and has been volleying versions with hackers since the beginning, keeping the iPhone locked and with a single, exclusive carrier. What this means is that in Italy customers can just by the iPhone and use it with any carrier that they choose.

In anticipation of a new iPhone model coming to Germany, T-Mobile has drastically slashed the price of the existing 8GB model from €399 to just €99 for German customers. This lower price equates to approximately $155 USD, where the 8GB iPhone is currently going for $399 with a 2 year contract in the United States.

The €99 iPhone is being offered for a limited time from April 7 through June 30 and comes with a 2 year plan for 89 euros a month. The 16GB model price appears to remain untouched with a price of €499. Apple has been rumored to have a new, faster 3G version of the iPhone in the works and this promotion may be a way to unload some of the older models prior to the launch. Alternatively it could also just be a promotion for Apple and T-Mobile to unload some of their inventory due to poor sales of the iPhone in the area due to the heavy competition of mobile handsets that are 3G enabled.

Anyone who watches Lost knows that the SAT phone used by the freighter people, looks like no other phone in existence. But new sat-phone company, MSV (Mobile Satellite Ventures) now has a prototype phone that looks a lot like the touch-screen SAT phone Naomi used to call for help when she landed on the island with the Oceanic 815 survivors. In fact it looks prettier.

The L-Series satellite phone will be available in 2010, complete with a new hybrid satellite/cellular system based on two satellites that MSV is launching in 2009. It go between cellular coverage when in range and satellite coverage when no cell service is available. The company plans to strike a deal with a US-based cellular carrier to sell satellite/cellular service under the carrier’s brand.

Samsung announced today a bitching new touchscreen mobile which may very well get us to switch over to its exclusive wireless carrier Sprint. It’s called the Samsung Instinct and, sorry, there is no pricing as of yet.

The Samsung Instinct sports “localized tactile feedback, called haptics, which allow the virtual QWERTY keypad and other operations to become a sensory experience.” Sweet. It is also Sprint’s first EV-DO Rev A consumer focused mobile, meaning you can expect quicker load times for things like browsing the Web and streaming audio.

Chrysler, the third largest US automaker, will be the first car company to offer in-car Internet access. Web service will be via subscription from a wireless carrier and dealers will add the feature to existing cars this year. Upcoming fleets will come off the assembly line already Internet-ready.

Get ready to see a rise in accidents as drivers get distracted by their favorite blog and subsequently wake up in the hospital missing a testicle or two, smelling of chicken feathers and looking like they shaved with a bulldozer that morning, while some fat nurse picks the windshield out of their face one fragment at a time.

Sony Ericsson today launched the T303, a small new slider mobile phone that offers a some style in a pocket-sized package. The T303 comes in a metal housing to give it a sold feel with a chrome finish and a sexy mirrored display.

The new handset isn’t breaking out into any bleeding edge technologies by any means, but looks to be a solid handset with some basic features and basic smooth looks. The small size is definitely something to take note of as well. The phone’s length measures just 3.3 inches when closed and weighs 3.3 ounces. It also has 65k color TFT and 8MB of internal memory for media, but does not appear to have any type of slot for external memory.

Today in an unexpected announcement Garmin, makers of all types of GPS devices, threw their hat into the cell phone market ring with the Garmin nuvifone. The nuvifone’s cornerstone is still as a GPS device but it is also a full-on GSM HDSPA smartphone with a large 3.5-inch touchscreen and modes for calling, searching and viewing maps. It even sports an internet browser with Google local search built in.

Like other Garmin GPS devices the nuvifone carries pre-loaded maps of North America or Europe, a media player, millions of points of interest and voice promted turn-by-turn directions. But with this one there is much more. Ever forget where you parked your car in the parking lot? When you take the nuvifone out of its mount it will take note of where its at and help you find it later.

A “Where am I?” feature gives you quick access to the nearest address, intersection, closest hospital or just your latitude and longitude coordinates whenever you need it. Hey, you never know when you’ll need them to properly set up your telescope. A built in camera comes standard and of course it will geo-tag your photos, and Garmin Online brings real-time traffic, stock info, sports action and news right to the device. And of course don’t forget email, text and instant messaging.

Apple seems intent on bringing the iPhone to Asia yet this year and Advanced Info Service (AIS) in Thailand is the latest to announce that they are in negotiations to bring the popular mobile handset in their direction. Apple has recently been in negotiations with NTT Docomo in Japan with revenue sharing being a pivotal point in negotiations. China Mobile had also been in talks about carrying the iPhone until recently when the issue of revenue sharing with Apple brought the discussions to a halt.

According to AIS chief marketing officer Sanchai Thiewprasertkul, Apple is likely to find difficulty in negotiating a revenue sharing deal in Thailand as well. AIS charges only a Thai baht (about 3 cents) per minute for airtime on their plans, and around 90% of the plans are prepaid. Apple would have trouble making revenue by trying to split 3 cents per minute and is looking to do so with post-paid plans.

If you were looking to take advantage of, or get taken advantage of depending on how you look at it, the very expensive deal T-Mobile was offering for unlocked iPhones in Germany you’re now too late. A German court has ruled that T-Mobile can indeed be the exclusive operator for Apple’s popular handset in Germany by ruling against a complaint filed by Vodafone.

Apple had planned to launch the iPhone in Germany with T-Mobile being the exclusive carrier much as it did in the United States, however Vodafone filed a complaint stating that the exclusivity went against German laws to protect consumers. The complaint resulted in a temporary injunction against T-Mobile requiring them to offer the iPhones unlocked and able to connect to other operators including Vodafone. T-Mobile complied with the injunction but offered the normally $580 iPhone in an unlocked state for $1460. Despite the high price Klaus Czerwinski of T-Mobile told ZDNet UK that there were still “many sold.”

Apple’s iPhone, winner of Time magazine’s invention of the year, went on sale in France tonight allowing residents to finally officially get their hands on the popular media smartphone. There’s more to the significance of this launch, however.

After months of bouts between iPhone hackers and Apple developers trying to keep the mobile phone “locked” and restricted to approved carriers, the French law requires that the phone not be restricted to any single mobile operator. France is the second country having this requirement for the iPhone after it was launched in Germany earlier this month and both countries are offering unlocked iPhones.

On Friday the long wait is over for many law-abiding citizens of the UK and Germany as the Apple iPhone will be (officially) sold for the first time in countries other than the United States. The iPhone will be sold through O2 in the UK and T-Mobile in Germany and surprisingly will still be lacking the fast and common 3G connection that is already prevalent with many existing smartphones in those areas. Pricing is expected to be 269 pounds in the U.K. and 399 euros in Germany, which both convert to roughly in the high $500′s USD.

The new iPhones are expected to be basically the same models that the U.S. customers have received although they will come preloaded with the OS X 1.1.2 version which has a fix for the latest hacks that allow 3rd party apps to run on it, which will make it just a little bit harder for hackers to unlock in the next go-round. Apple is likely betting that the cool dual-touch screen interface and media playing integration will overshadow the lack of high-speed data connections with 3G, and users will be satisfied with a jumping from hotspot to hotspot instead. France will be the next country to get their hands on the iPhone later this month through Orange where Apple may run into problems with French law and restrictions on locking phones to exclusive carriers.

Hop-on, a cell phone manufacturer perhaps best known for developing disposable mobiles, is introducing a new handset with GPS abilities. The Hop-on 1883 has no set price announced as of yet.

The Hop-on 1883 integrates a SiRF Starlll GPS chipset for helping you get around town. It’s otherwise a rather regular tri-band GSM style mobile in a candy bar design. The 1883 sports a 2.8-inch touchscreen display which is full color and a two-megapixel digital camera for photos and video recording. Bluetooth 2.0 support is also included.