Amazon is offering the HTC Fuze for the new contract price of $149 after 2 year contract and $30 rebate. The phone is shown as available in 4 to 6 weeks, however my experience with Amazon is their stock often fills and ships sooner. If you can wait and would like to save 50% off your neighborly AT&T store cost (which has the phone for the new contract amount of $299 after $50 rebate) check out this Amazon deal. Always, phone deals require a new line of service and minimum service commitment of 2 years.

AT&T Fuze via Amazon - $149

Smartphone users in Europe can look forward to this smokin’ hot little number being revealed today: meet the HTC S740, a marriage of the HTC Diamond and a Windows Mobile Standard device.

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The S740 is a “smartphone with Diamond styling, including a sleek front and faceted back and a similar feature set. However instead of a touch screen, the S740 runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard and features both a numeric and slide out QWERTY keypad”

Highlights include:

· Size: 116.3 x 43.4 x 16.3 mm
· Weight: 140g with battery
· Networks: WCDMA/HSDPA: 900/2100 MHz for EU and Asia
· GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
· Display: 2.4-inch QVGA screen
· Camera: 3.2 megapixel with fixed focus
· Internal memory: 256 MB flash; 256 MB RAM
· Memory card: microSD™
· WLAN: 802.11b/g
· Bluetooth®: 2.0 with EDR
· GPS: GPS/AGPS
· Interface: HTC ExtUSB™ (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
· Battery: 1000 mAh
· FM Radio

The S740 will become available across Europe in September. I’m a bit worried about its 1000mAh battery, but otherwise I’m quite intrigued!

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[Note: Pictures pending, I need to retake them]

A few months ago I bought an unlocked Samsung BlackJack II on eBay, and shortly after receiving it I was ready to dump it. In a word, it was crap. It was awfully slow, had a painfully laggy keyboard, didn’t have very good battery life and it picked up fingerprints like nothing else. It was genuinely hopeless, and after a month it made it’s way back onto eBay and out of my life forever.

I went back to my trusty N95 8GB, which had served me faithfully for several months, perfect for me in every way except one: the keyboard. It had an excellent number pad, but I despise using T9, I’m not terribly good at it. I like to have a key for every letter, that’s how I roll. I wanted a smartphone with a thumboard again, but nothing on the market suited. Windows Mobile seems to have lost the plot somewhere, Sony Ericsson’s UIQ devices are old and outdated, and the only Nokia available in a similar form-factor to the BJII was the E61i, which is too wide, ugly and old. Was is the operative word in that sentence, because the phone that I have wanted since I first read about it has been released, and I have since passed the N95 8GB onto my sister as I won’t be needing it anymore.

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