As the latest edition to Sony Ericsson’s environmentally friendly GreenHeart portfolio, the Aspen comes with a green charger that alerts you when the battery is full, is made partially from recycled plastics, has reduced packaging and an e-manual instead of a paper one. It is also coloured with waterborne paint instead of Volatile Organics Compounds (VOC).
A Windows smartphone

Running on Windows Mobile 6.5  the Aspen has both touch capabilities and QWERTY and looks the business with Sony Ericsson Slide View as part of the user interface that allows for customisable panels.

It has A-GPS, Google Maps, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook, and of course you can view and edit documents on the go with Office Mobile.

And there’s Skype, YouTube, Twitter and Google Latitude on board plus MicroSD for up to 16 GB storage.
The Aspen look

The Aspen is one of the more attractive Sony Ericsson phones on the market right now and comes in cobalt and black with a curved design, shape and size that is reminiscent of the Blackberry or Nokia E71 or E72 but with a lovely matte finish.

There’s no exact release date yet on the Aspen but it will be sometime in Q1 or Q2 or 2010.

…

Android will rise to be the second most used mobile OS in the world by 2013, according to a new IDC estimate. Analysts still expect Symbian to hold on to its lead but that Google’s OS will have grown 100 times larger since starting off in 2008, reaching 68 million phones three years from today. The prediction doesn’t immediately gauge the position of BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile but expects all three to be eclipsed.

The upset would come about as a virtue of the Android ecosystem. As more companies start making Android phones, the platform should become the default choice for those who aren’t making their own operating systems and will replace both Linux and Windows Mobile in these areas. Apple and RIM are the only manufacturers for their platforms and limit their exposure as a result.

Nokia’s security, meanwhile, should come from its established dominance in areas outside of North America. Linux and webOS are the only major platforms expected to struggle, as the former will likely lose out to Android while webOS’ relatively limited availability could hurt, even as it grows overall.

Android remained small for most of its first year but has rapidly grown through late 2009 and early…

Beginning today, Verizon Wireless customers may sign up for a new Nationwide Unlimited Talk plan that allows customers to call anyone in the United States for $69.99 monthly access or a Nationwide Unlimited Talk & Text plan to call and send text, picture and video messages to anyone in the country for $89.99 monthly access.

Nationwide Family SharePlans will also have new unlimited options. Nationwide Unlimited Talk Family SharePlans will be $119.99 monthly access while the Nationwide Unlimited Talk & Text Family SharePlans will be $149.99 monthly access. All Family SharePlan pricing includes the first two lines of service. Standard text message rates will apply for customers on the Nationwide Unlimited Talk plans who do not sign up for a text messaging bundle.

The company also announced the expansion of the 25 megabyte for $9.99 per month data package requirement to include all Verizon Wireless 3G multimedia phones, which gives customers quick access to mobile e-mail, games and the Internet. The data package requirement was introduced last year with the LG enV TOUCH and the Samsung Rogue. Today’s announcement expands that list to include new activations of the LG Chocolate Touch, LG enV3, LG VX8360, Motorola Entice W766, Nokia 7705 Twist and…

That’s what Research in Motion, BlackBerry’s maker, is hoping. The new Curve 8520 has big shoes to fill, since the “Curve” brand was once the most popular smartphone in the U.S. (it may have since ceded that title to Apple’s iPhone, thanks to solid 3G S sales).

This new Curve is meant to bring the BlackBerry to the average consumer in a way that the BlackBerry Pearl Flip did not. That phone sacrificed the BlackBerry’s signature, and some would argue best, asset — the perfected QWERTY keyboard that launched a thousand “Crackberry” addicts — for the flip format that Americans just can’t seem to give up.

The Curve 8520 takes a different approach. At first glance, the Curve takes the clean lines of its older siblings the Bold 9000, Curve 8900 and Tour 9630 and strips out the chrome and extra functionality for a solid but surprisingly light (3.73 oz.) and slim (0.54 in. thick) handset that preserves BlackBerry heritage.

[ZDNet Image Gallery: Hands-on with RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8520]

Inside, RIM has updated the device. It now features a 512MHz processor and 256MB of RAM.

But the most notable changes are on the outside. First, you’ll notice the flush, rubberized edging that also coats the side buttons. In addition…

Much to BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion’s (RIM) chagrin, very few details on the company’s still-unannounced BlackBerry Bold “9700/Onyx/Driftwood” smartphone remain unknown. Due to high interest in this replacement for RIM’s current high-end Bold 9000 device, early device evaluators, AT&T field testers and other tipsters have been slowly dropping hints including specifications and images for months.

In fact, the first picture of the device codenamed Onyx/Driftwood and now thought to be RIM’s BlackBerry Bold 9700 first hit the Web back in May. At the time, the device was thought to be headed to both AT&T and T-Mobile. And recent events–namely a leaked AT&T pre-release device list and a picture of a T-Mobile branded Bold 9700–lend further credence to this theory.

If everything pans out as predicted, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 will be T-Mobile USA’s very first 3G BlackBerry.

The T-Mobile device, which will presumably differ from AT&T’s Bold 9700 because it will support UMA, or VoWi-Fi calling, and employ T-Mobile’s unique 1700 MHz 3G band, was reportedly codenamed “Driftwood.” AT&T’s new Bold is thought to have been codenamed “Onyx,” and it will likely use AT&T’s 1900 MHz band for 3G.

While it seems certain that the BlackBerry Bold 9700 will land on T-Mobile USA at…