Although not a soul alive is shocked by the news, today Verizon Wireless announced it will be releasing the HTC Imagio — its first Windows Mobile 6.5 device — online starting October 6th. The Imagio, known to most by its codename Whitestone, will feature the following key specs: 3.6″ WVGA touchscreen display (resistive, of course), 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, Wi-Fi, EV-DO Rev. A, quad-band EDGE and 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA for international roaming. Being a WinMo device from HTC, TouchFLO 3D is naturally included while Verizon will be chipping in MediaFLO support for those who are willing to part with an extra $15 per month. So what will the Imagio cost come its big day? $199.99 on a 2-year deal after a $100 MIR which isn’t all that shabby, all things considered.

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What better way to start off a new week than with an early review of an unreleased handset from our Russian friends at mobile-review. Maybe it’s a Labor Day present. This week they’ve managed to get their hands on the HTC Touch2, a device that will help kick off the Windows Phone revolution evolution interim solution. Overall the device scored well with good build quality, pocket/palm-friendly dimensions, great performance, solid call quality and good battery life; but it wasn’t all milk and cookies. One of the biggest shortcomings of the Touch2 appears to be the lack of auto-focus for the 3 megapixel camera — mobile-review feels the cam produces shots with bland colors and an extra helping of blur. Also, the navigation buttons proved to be very difficult for those with larger digits. As for how much the Touch2 will cost when it hits shelves starting October 6th, no one is really sure but the latest word is that it will run about $500 unlocked, give or take.

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Get a load of the cojones on HTC. Not content to let Nokia have all of the fun today over in Stuttgart, HTC has announced the Touch2. This little sucker will run Windows Mobile 6.5 with HTC’s very own TouchFLO overlay, and it will be one of the first smartphones to take advantage of all of those new fangled features that constitute a Windows Phone. For the time being, HTC is keeping mum with specs but we’ll be sure to let you know just as soon as they land in our inbox — even though we think we know full well what we’re dealing with. The HTC Mega, err, Touch2 will launch in unspecified markets on October 6th.

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The Samsung Memoir has been rumored to make its way to the nation’s newest 3G network for a very, very long time. Starting today, however, it’s available in all of T-Mobile’s retail stores, online, and over the phone. Samsung’s high-end optics on handsets are nothing new, but an 8 megapixel sensor certainly trumps anything available in the U.S. market (sold by a carrier). In terms of raw specs, you’re looking at T-Mobile 3G support, touch screen with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface (we’ll get into that in a bit), Xenon flash, HTML web browser, A-GPS and nifty photo functions such as smile and face detection along with geo-tagging capabilities.

The feel of the handset is actually great. It’s a combination of metal, soft-touch-finished paint and plastic which all blend together marvelously. The physical design works extremely well as far as not cramping your style no matter how you’re using the phone — web browsing, taking photos, texting — plus, there’s not too much you can do to hide an 8 megapixel sensor.

TouchWiz is a decent attempt at jazzing up a rather poor, old, and horrible operating system that Samsung has made us deal with. You’re given a list of widgets that can be dropped on the home screen for your enjoyment, but we really found this to be a pain in the ass. The home screen offers basically no functionality besides showing the clock and the weather. Everything else is a just a shortcut to another application. If Samsung had copied a little bit of HTC’s TouchFLO 3D, they would have made this at least a little bit more interesting.

Diving into the handset’s OS, you sort of get a dull feeling. Nothing pops out at you and nothing is really interesting. In a world of smartphone operating system battles, even featurephones nowadays need to start stepping it up. Text-based menus really aren’t going to cut it, you know? Like, at least try a little bit for us, ok? The photo section of the phone is probably the most manicured part of the handset, but even that really isn’t saying much. Sure you can swipe to peruse your photos from last night’s drunken stupor, and yes, you can automagically (credit: Gizmodo) upload your pictures to Flickr and T-Mobile MyAlbum service, but we just don’t see the connection here. You know, between a phone and a camera. Especially with an OS so bad and so 1999, it just doesn’t work in our minds. If you really want a decent cameraphone on T-Mobile, we’d completely recommend picking up the Motorola ZN5 over this bad boy, it at least has a decent phone OS that you can work with. The resistive touch screen tech mixed with a pretty bad excuse for an operating system boiled with an 8 megapixel sensor baked with text menus aren’t exactly our cup of tea.

Then there’s also the price-point. For $249.99 on a 2-year agreement, we’d have trouble not slapping you if you didn’t pick up the BlackBerry Curve 8900 over this. Didn’t you hear? T-Mobile can’t keep them on the shelves. We highly doubt stockrooms won’t be cozying up the Samsung Memoir, though. It’s not horrible, it just isn’t worth the hassle or the price. At least in our photo scrapbook.

Click on over to our T-Mobile Samsung Memoir gallery!

We actually weren’t even going to do an unboxing / first impressions post. Seen one HTC Touch Pro, seen ‘em all, right? Wrong, guys. In a rare example of AT&T not scumming down their devices (adding crapware, horrible themes, removing features, blocking stuff), we think they’ve actually made the device better! For starters, one of the most important things is the connectivity. The regular Touch Pro does not have tri-band UMTS/HSDPA support. The AT&T Fuze does. Also check this… on the original Touch Pro, there were no “OK” and “Start” buttons. A complete meltdown of necessary Windows Mobile functionality. Well, AT&T’s Fuze has both. Instead of the numbers being laid out across the top row of keys, they are in classic number pad format on the left side of the keyboard, and we’re actually really feeling the default AT&T TouchFLO theme here. They even made it so the Start menu was always visible on the home screen, too. We approve. How about a short, short summary? The AT&T HTC Fuze is the best Windows Mobile Professional phone on the market. Good? Make sure you hit the gal-gal for all the shots!

Note: we haven’t reviewed the Sprint Touch Pro, so we’re not sure if the key layout is the same, etc.

Click on over to our AT&T Fuze unboxing gallery!

One of our faithful ninjas has sent in some info about Telus’ upcoming HTC Touch Pro release. According to our guy, the handset should launch sometime this week, which is in line with other reports. When it drops, expect to pay $299 on a 3 year contract, jumping to a whopping $549 on a 2 year bid, $599 on a 1 year contract, and $649 shackle free. This pricing is comparable to Telus’ current BlackBerry 8830 structure, placing the new HTC model in direct competition with the aging ‘Berry. Finally, we’ve got some comparison shots between the Telus Touch Pro and the handset it’s replacing, the HTC P4000/Mogul/6800. Nothing groundbreaking here, but it does help to illuminate the fact that the Touch Pro is a slightly smaller than its predecessor. Hit the jump for another couple of images.

Thanks, rileysfreeman and kjb_ninja

Josh is working on the full review for the Touch Diamond, but in the meantime, we’re givin’ one of these bad boys away! That’s right people. Where else can you get this kind of love? No where, that’s where. Official rules are:

• Contest will run from now until Sunday June 8th at 11:59PM ET. 
• Winner will be announced the following day, on Monday June 9th.
• To enter, send us a shot of you doing your best BG “gang sign.” Most creative entry wins!
• Send the photo to htctouch at boygeniusreport dot com
• If you’re shy, don’t worry about sending in a picture with your face, we’re accepting all entries!
• You may enter once and only once. We’ll make a gallery with all the entries.
• Commenting does not enter you in the running!
• This contest is open to everyone, including international readers!

Ready? Get set. Go!

P.S. Couple pics of the BG gang sign after the jump! You know, for reference…

The long wait is over. HTC and Best Buy are finally getting ready to make the North American version of the HTC Touch Dual available to U.S. customers. The handset will be on sale at Best Buy retail locations, on the Best Buy website, and through any specialized Best Buy Mobile store. The big news here is that the Touch Dual will come complete with Windows Mobile 6.1, making it one of the first handsets on the market to sport the revamped operating system. Other highlights include HSDPA, 2 megapixel camera, and HTC’s soon-to-be-obsolete TouchFLO interface. Expect to shell out $549 before tax.

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