T-Mobile at CES 2009

T-Mobile this morning volunteered to use CES as the venue to introduce a trio of new phones for its network. The company's long in progress Shadow update completely reworks the design but continues to embrace the same basic philosophy of a jogwheel for control and a slide-out, SureType keyboard. The new model, however, builds in Wi-Fi with HotSpot Calling and carries a faster 260MHz processor to help drive its Windows Mobile 6.1 platform.

The phone otherwise has a 2-megapixel camera, a microSDHC card slot, and GSM plus EDGE for its cellular networking. As before, T-Mobile customizes the software and includes a hook for myFaves in addition to preloading IM clients for AIM, ICQ, Windows Live and Yahoo. T-Mobile hopes to ship the 2009 Shadow in two different color schemes on January 28th but hasn't provided a price.

The carrier is also poised to launch its own version of the Nokia 7510 Supernova. T-Mobile's edition is close to the 2-megapixel flip phone's reference design but adds Wi-Fi for HotSpot Calling as well as a myFaves feature. Several provider-specific swappable faceplates will be available when the phone goes on sale in "coming weeks" at an undetermined price.

Basic phone users get the last phone of the introductions. The Samsung t119 focuses solely on calling and strips out the camera and most other extras; data is handled solely over GPRS. The candybar design is scheduled to release sometime in February and again doesn't have a price.

By Electronista Staff