REBarCampVA is this week and I’m getting ready for a short session demo of  hands on SmartPhones. Deciding what phone suits your needs is never easy but when you need a phone to be more than a phone nothing beats real hands on time with an active phone.

This week we will do more than look  at these 4 smart phones: Samsung Saga, Samsung Omnia, BlackBerry Curve & BlackBerry Storm; we’ll actually play (use) them.

Verizon Communications Inc.

The Samsung Saga (TM) from Verizon Wireless is a global smartphone that features a 2.55′ advanced touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard that provides business professionals with an easy way to send e-mail, text and instant messages. This productivity powerhouse is equipped with Quad Band GSM/GPRS capability, an optical mouse, Wi-Fi access (802.11 b/g), Opera mobile browser and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional to keep customers connected to their offices when they are at home and abroad.
(PRNewsFoto/Verizon Wireless).

Source: Yahoo News

The 7-O-7 Tech Shop
The spotlight during the week (Nov. 10-16) was on these 7 offers: NVIDIA introduced Quadro FX 5800, which is claimed to be the first 4GB graphics card. NAVTEQ Traffic is for real-time traffic information on Microsoft Windows Live FrameIt. In the flurry of phone launches, Nokia came with E63, Samsung offered Saga and Renown, and ASUS introduced its business PDA phone. To bring relevance to Google Site Search, the company has added On-Demand Indexing, and American Airlines has introduced mobile boarding passes…More

SAMSUNG OMNIA

CNET video review here

Engadget Mobile hands-on review available here

Brighthand review available here

SONY ERICSSON XPERIA X1

Paul at MoDaCo reviews the X1 – photos, videos, screenshots – here

Engadget Mobile takes it for a spin and has lots to say here

Video unboxing here

Detailed review available here

HTC TOUCH DIAMOND

Detailed, size comparisons, videos and lots of photos from PocketNow here

CNET video review here

PhoneArena review with good size comparisons here

Sprint Touch Diamond review by InfoSync here

HTC TOUCH PRO

Almost every mobile operator is picking this phone up for the holidays. Comes complete with HTC TouchFlo 3D user interface.

ZDNET’s Matt Miller covers the AT&T Fuze and Sprint Touch Pro here

HTC Touch HD

Engadget Mobile Review round up

LG INCITE

SAMSUNG SAGA

Short review available here

Dashwire for S60 will soon be available for S60 3rd Edition based devices!

NOKIA 6650

Available from AT&T Wireless in the US

Detailed review of T-Mobile version of the hardware from AllAboutSymbian available here

NOKIA E63

Couple of good comparison photos vs. E71 here

NOKIA E71

BoyGenius review here

Rafe review has tons of photos and comparison shot to E61 – here

Engadget Mobile review here

Couple of good comparison photos vs. E63 here

Couple of good keyboard comparison photos here

NOKIA N79

Detailed hands-on preview here

Full specifications here

NOKIA N85

Review with lots of photos here

Nokia Blog review here

NOKIA N96

Detailed review available from AllAboutSymbian here

PhoneArena has lots of great photos here

Samsung Saga, Renown Go Global with Verizon
The mobile phones come with global connectivity, messaging options, and 2.0 megapixel cameras.  Both phones will be available this month (Nov.) and work in more than 200 destinations worldwide for voice and 150 global destinations for data, including South American locations…More