The Bluetooth SIG has a long history of promoting its members’ “special interests” by leaking valuable tidbits about their handsets before they’re announced. The recently unearthed LG C900 is the latest of these, being pegged for a launch date “around” September 28th by the SIG’s detail page on the phone. The QWERTY slider, which is referred to in C900N, C900k, and C900B versions, will be available in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. Phone Arena conjectures that the launch date lines up with AT&T’s marketing materials timing and the slated Q4 launch of Windows Phone 7, so the C900 probably has a decent chance of being the first Windows Phone 7 phones to market if LG’s own GW910 or some more secretive set doesn’t beat it to the punch. Still, September is a bit earlier than any of the launch windows Microsoft has managed to let slip, and as far as we know Microsoft won’t even be accepting apps in the Marketplace before October.
AT&T came right out and confessed that it would be “the premiere carrier” for Windows Phone 7, and while it’s obviously far too early to say if that’ll be the case, this ain’t a bad way to start proving one’s point. Samsung’s Cetus (SGH-i917) was just recently confirmed to be one of the first commercial Windows Phone 7 devices last week, and now the always-disclosing FCC database has shed even more light on the phone’s intentions. Based on the mention of 850 / 1,900MHz frequency support — and that whole “SGH-i917 (ATT)” marking on the label — it’s pretty safe to assume that this 4-inch, AMOLED-packin’ superphone will soon be fighting with the iPhone 4 for shelf space. There’s obviously no indication of when Ma Bell plans on releasing this one to the wilds, but it’s typically not too far out after hitting this milestone. Giddy yet?
You’d probably assume that Samsung would have a difficult time overshadowing the Galaxy S right now, but all it really takes is a salacious Bluetooth SIG entry that leaves only the most important parts to the imagination. We’ve known for some time now that Sammy would be one of Microsoft’s closest Windows Phone 7 launch partners, and we’ve even taken the time to toy with a prototype earlier in the year. But a new Bluetooth certification is now all-but-confirming a name: Cetus. The SGH-i917 is apt to be North America’s first WP7 device from Samsung, a 4-inch smartphone with an 800 x 480 AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera, a VGA front-facing camera, an FM radio tuner, inbuilt GPS, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, USB 2.0 and of course, Bluetooth. As for pricing, availability and form factor? “Not yet.”
We’d already heard from Samsung itself at CTIA that we’d see the high-end Galaxy S complete with blindingly brilliant Super AMOLED display on American soil in 2010 — and considering that Sammy doesn’t play the unlocked, unbranded game in these parts, that means with certainty that it’ll be coming to a carrier. Here’s where it gets interesting: the Bluetooth SIG has recently certified a “full touch” device (read: no keyboard) from Samsung identified as the SGH-i897 with a 4-inch display and TouchWiz 3.0 — in other words, a dead ringer for the unbranded Galaxy S that’s identified as the i9000. Historically, Samsung models that start with SGH and end with a number 7 land at AT&T (it’s a tradition that goes back years) so it stands to reason that this i897 is destined for the orange and blue. Is AT&T actually planning on getting serious about solid Android hardware this year?
We were glad to see Bluetooth low energy actually added to the Bluetooth 4.0 spec, but of course the question remained: when are we going to get our hands on it? By Q4 this year, apparently — at least according to the Bluetooth SIG. But don’t expect any dramatic changes in battery life for most of your gadgets: while the low energy spec introduces connectivity to a host of lower-power devices that have in the past relied on proprietary technology (such as watches, pedometers, and cats), your traditional Bluetooth devices, such as phones and laptops, will consume roughly the same amount of power. Indeed, the low energy spec is merely throwing smaller devices (with smaller amounts of data to transfer) in to the mix: if you want Trans-Siberian Orchestra to sound as glorious as ever on your wireless headphones, you’ll need to push as much data (and hence draw as much power) with version 4 as you would with version 3. If you’ve ever heard “A Mad Russian’s Christmas,” you’d know what we’re talking about.
Ah, Bluetooth Special Interest Group, our second-favorite source for mobile leaks (next to the FCC, of course). Here’s two new entries care of Acer, both touchscreen devices with quadband GSM. The Android-powered E110 (pictured, right), however, also touts the AT&T-friendly 850 / 1900 frequencies and A-GPS. As for the P300, it’s got an unknown version of Windows Mobile, 802.11b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR. That’s quite a bit of detail for two tiny entries — now let’s get Mobile World Congress started already, give Acer a nice platform to spill the beans.
The Bluetooth SIG’s device database isn’t typically the most helpful when it comes to tracking down specs and gorgeous, high-res photos — but often, it’s first way we hear of a new device, so we’ll take what we can get. Take this F350 from ZTE for example; from the single picture the SIG’s given us, we can’t even make out whether it’s a landscape or slider, a pivot, or a full touchscreen (doubtful) phone, but we can make out a shiny little Verizon swoosh three-quarters of the way down. It’ll apparently have a camera, voice command capability, Bluetooth (of course), and a 1X radio, but we’re not clear on whether that means it won’t have EV-DO. Now that we know Verizon’s working with ZTE, this makes quite a bit of sense, doesn’t it?
And here we have it: what’s likely to be the world’s first Bluetooth 3.0 phone courtesy of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). According to the filing’s description, the “compact and slim” Samsung GT-S8500 is a touchscreen slate phone with a “high resolution” 3.1-inch OLED sporting a TouchWIZ UI and quad-band GSM/EDGE radios. The advantages of the 3.0 Bluetooth spec approved in April are faster throughput (up to 24Mbps) and more frugal power usage — both welcome advances in modern media-playing handsets. Although it’s not stated we can assume an official launch in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress.
Recognize? This white cousin of the Nokia Twist 7705 briefly showed up on Bluetooth SIG’s website as the Twist 7505, but now the picture’s been eaten by a sad black square, and the description text taken over by some copy-and-paste disaster — probably the panicked work of some shaking webmaster after a phone call from Verizon or Finland. Apart from the obvious replacement of touch-activated buttons with physical ones below the screen, the camera’s apparently 1.3 megapixel instead of 7705′s 3 megapixel. There’s a chance that the hole at the bottom right of the screen has been patched up by a concave button as well, but we can’t tell from this low-res pic; at any rate, though, it’s certainly not the phone in Verizon’s lineup that we would’ve expected to be re-released as a slightly lower-end model.
Bluetooth low energy and its predecessors (think Wibree) have been in the pipe for ages now, but we might actually see this tech take off en masse for the first time now that the Bluetooth SIG has officially added it into a release: 4.0. While Bluetooth 3.0 was all about high energy with the introduction of WiFi transfer, 4.0 takes things down a notch by certifying single-mode low energy devices in addition to dual-mode devices that incorporate both the low energy side of the spec plus either 2.1+EDR or 3.0. In a nutshell, the technology should bring a number of new categories and form factors of wireless devices into the fold since 1Mbps Bluetooth low energy can operate on coin cells — the kinds you find in wristwatches, calculators, and remote controls — and the SIG’s pulling no punches by saying that “with today’s announcement the race is on for product designers to be the first to market.” Nokia pioneered Wibree, so you can bet they’ll be among the frontrunners — bring it, guys.
We were glad to see 
Ah, Bluetooth Special Interest Group, our second-favorite source for mobile leaks (next to the 
