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One last thought about last week’s CTIA cell phone industry show in Las Vegas, anywhere you went you were able to run into a new Android phone.

Take Motorola (please).  If you moseyed over to their booth on the show floor you were immediately greeted by their new i1 (that’s a small letter I and the number one) — the world first iDEN Android smartphone.

iDEN means that the phone works on the Sprint Nextel network and allows you to use the infamous Direct Connect wireless voice message system. You know – the one with the “chirp” sound when you press down the push-to-talk button.

The phone itself is a full-fleged Android phone.  It has a 3.1-inch screen, runs on Android OS version 1.5, sports a 5 megapixel camera, comes with a 2GB microSD memory card (and supports the big, new 32GB cards), also has Wi-fi, Bluetooth, Microsoft’s Document Viewer software as well as Swype and T9 on-screen keyboard input.  (Love that Swype!)

iDEN is Motorola’s technology that Nextel (and now Sprint) use.  Most people are familiar with iDEN’s Direct Connect, push-to-talk feature and the famous “chirp” sound the phone makes when you have a two-way “walkie-talkie”-type conversation with another Direct Connect user.

iDEN is neither a 4G or 3G system.  It’s actually much older 2G technology which still has a lot of life left in it. 

To get the most out of this iDEN technology, Motorola features the new Opera Mini 5 Web browser.  It uses fewer phone resources and provides a terrific browsing experience.  It looks very, very speedy in practical use situations during the limited time I had to play with a sample device. 

On the other hand, when you’re i1 is near a Wi-fi network it will work at Wi-fi speeds.  For many users that is just fine.

Morotola and Sprint didn’t actually announce pricing or availability just yet.  All they’ll say is the “i1 will be available in multiple regions around the globe beginning in Q2 2010.” 

Expect to actually see one in the wild toward the beginning of the summer.

Here at the CTIA 2010 in Las Vegas the big announcements have been few and far in-between, so far – but the ones we’ve heard about are pretty big blockbusters.

Take the big-deal announcement about Samsung’s new super-smart Android phone, the Galaxy S (also known as model GT-I9000) with Smart Life.  

Up close, this handset looks like a real contender for the title “Best Smartphone in the World”.

The absolute best feature of the new handset is the amazing 4-inch super-AMOLED color screen.  You have to see it in person to believe it.  Large and sharp, this is one terrific screen. 

The rest of the phone ain’t bad either.   Consider Samsung’s fast, home-grown 1.0 GHz processor inside – and some nightmare of an alphabetical jumble called the mDNLe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) which is really some clever video technology they’ve borrowed from their LCD and LED TVs.   Samsung claims that it helps create what they call “a perfect environment to record, edit and play HD video, to browse the Internet, and to read your favorite e-books.”

Smart Life is Samsung’s new social media interface which incorporates all the “de riguer” features of the day (Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, etc.)  It looks like a very cool solution to getting all your important information on your home screens.   Samsung thinks this new feature will “shift the way that consumers view smart phones and how they interact with them in their daily lives.”

The phone runs on Android 2.1 operating system.  Actually, on one of the sample phones we got to play with, it said the device ran on Android 2.1 Update 1 – whatever that means.  

The test phone was a GSM-based model which runs on GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA and HSUPA networks.  That would explain why Samsung announced the phone would be released in Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia and Asia very soon.   Our sample was running on T-Mobile’s EDGE network which means, in the United States, if you want 3G you’ll need an AT&T SIM card.

The Galaxy S also features Swype.  It’s a slide-your-finger, on-screen keyboard available on other Samsung devices (and the new T-Mobile, Motorola CLIQ XT) which makes “fast typing” on a smartphone a breeze.  There’s also a 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, 802.11b/g/n Wi-fi, Bluetooth and an 8GB or 16GB microSD memory expansion card will be made available (depending on the carrier).

Overall, the phone looked very promising. Samsung, the number one cell phone manufacturer on the planet, says the Galaxy S will be available “soon”.

I’m guessing that means we’ll hear something about a U.S. cellular carrier distribution deal and possible pricing very soon. Probably by early summer.

Wow!  And that’s putting it mildly.

In a very short period of time we’ve gone from cell phones to feature phones – to early smartphones like Palm Treos, Nokias and BlackBerries – to iPhones, Pres and the first Androids and now, the first super Android smartphone.

In a huge show of force, Sprint has just introduced the first 3G/4G smartphone – the HTC Evo 4G – at this year’s spring CTIA gathering here in Las Vegas. 

In a relatively short demonstration, Sprint gave an inkling of what this super phone can do – and I have to tell you the crowd of jaded journalists and weary analysts seemed very impressed.

And why not?  This phone has some very, very impressive laptop-like specs, such as:

A fast, 1.0 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
Huge, 4.3-inch (diagonal) color screen (largest one yet)
Android OS version 2.1 (which means all the latest Android/Google apps and accessories)
4G (where available) and 3G (where 4G isn’t) data connectivity.
Bluetooth and Wi-fi
Mobile hot-spot capabilities (with up to 8 connections at the same time)
8MP auto-focus camera on the back and a 1.3MP camera on the front.
8GB miniSD expansion card (32GB cards are now available)
HDMI connector to attach your Evo 4G to a big flat-screen monitor

What all this means is that this phone is fast – it runs on fast networks – has a pretty impressive camera and sports the largest screen of any smartphone, so far.

In the demonstrations, we got to see the phone streaming movie trailers over the 4G network and then playing them back on the huge overhead monitors in the hall.  Very impressive video and sound to say the least. And remember, that was video streaming over a cellular data network.  That’s something other companies will take awhile to match.

We didn’t get a lot of time to play with sample devices but I can tell you that the phone felt good in my hand.  The screen looked very good for early units and video playback was very, very impressive.   So was the speed of Web page downloads. Overall, I can’t wait to put an Evo 4G through the paces as soon as they’re made available.

Sprint hasn’t yet decided on a price for the 4G smartphone (or if they have they weren’t letting on at the event).  But, a company spokesperson told me that even though the phone breaks a lot of new ground with all these super features it will definitely be “aggressively priced”.  I’m hoping that means somewhere around $200 with the usual 2-year service contract commitment.

I’m guessing that might also depend on what Apple has up their sleeves concerning this year’s round of update for their iPhone devices.

As for availability, Sprint is saying it should be ready for sale by early summer.  Since summer begins towards the end of June, I’m hoping that means the Evo 4G will become available sometime towards the beginning of that month in time for the “Dads and Grads” gift-giving season. You can pre-register for an Evo 4G now on Sprint’s Website.

Motorola’s new BackFlip smartphone is an odd duck.  Not because it doesn’t perform its tasks in a proper manner but because it’s somewhat backwards.

The BackFlip is another “innovative” Android phone from Motorola – and the first with Google’s operating system to make it to AT&T.

It sports a 3.1-inch screen and a real QWERTY keyboard but both of those features are on the the outside of the handset’s case. The phone flips open so you can type and view the screen at the same time but when flipped closed you can use the standard Android on-screen keyboard leaving the hardware keyboard fully exposed.

After a year or two of banging around in a pocket or purse – or possibly falling off a nightstand – I wonder just how pretty your BackFlip will still look.

Behind the screen – accessible when the phone is flipped open – is a touch-pad controller/mouse of sorts. One finger lets you move from one screen to another. But movements on the back pad is a mirror image of finger movements on the front screen. What that means is – when you slide your finger to the right on the front the screen move to the right. When you slide your finger to the right on the back pad the screens move to the left.

I know it’s called a BackFlip but any new phone design which requires a long explanation about layout and navigation features is odd — to say the least.

The BackFlip features Motorola’s social networking themed home screen apps called MotoBlur. That means the phone runs on a slightly older version of the Android OS (1.5/Cupcake). Because it’s a two-part, flip open design the 15.3-ounce handset feels somewhat bulky/heavy in your hand despite its manageable overall size (2.0 by 4.25 by 0.6 inches).

Once you get past the oddities using the phone is very intuitive and fun. BackFlip There is everything else you would expectincluded in a modern-day, quad-band Android world phone including a 5.0-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth and turn-by-turn GPS directions. There are also a slew of neat software titles like AT&T Maps, AT&T Music, GoogleTalk, Google Maps, MobiTV and lots more.

The BackFlip also seems to hold onto AT&T’s 3G data network signal a whole lot better than some of it’s better known competition (like the rival super smartphone designed by some Cupertino engineers).  And, I haven’t dropped a voice call yet.

Back on the odd side of the equation, even though this is a Google/Android phone the home screen search engine features Yahoo Search. I told you this was an odd design.

AT&T and Motorola boast that the included battery pack offers up to 6-1/2 hours of talk and as much as 13.5 days of standby time per full recharge session. The key words here are “up to”. In real life light-to-moderate use (some voice, some messaging) expect to be able to squeeze a day’s worth of battery life out of your phone.

It looks like the best feature of the phone may be its price. AT&T is selling the Motorola BackFlip for $99.99 with a two-year service contract (a voice contract, $30 per month data contract and any activation charges). According to the AT&T Website that price breaks down to $199.99 minus a $100 online rebate.

Cell phones which sell for less than $100 are what fuels the cell phone industry and could help make this handset a big winner with customers. That should explain the overwhelmingly positive comments about the BackFlip on the AT&T Website

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