Anyone who's been jonesing for a U9 with a little more style look no further than the MOTOJEWEL, a new clamshell Motorola's bringing to the UK this fall that's being billed as "a phone so sassy that users will wish they could wear it." What then, pray tell, makes it so sassy? Well, that's an open subject of debate -- but we're guessing it's mostly the "3D crystal-cut design" that rings the mirrored Midnight Quartz shell to give it that jeweled look and the "dazzling" purple keypad that you won't find on your garden variety U9. Otherwise, though, the specs are sounding mighty familiar: 2-megapixel cam, external touch-sensitive music controls, stereo Bluetooth, Motorola's CrystalTalk noise reduction -- you know the drill -- and unless Moto pulled a fast one on us and slipped in some 3G, it's likely packing quadband EDGE. Look for this little gem (see what we did there?) as a Carphone Warehouse limited edition exclusive starting in November.

[Via MobileBurn]

There's a "Motorola Q11" chilling in the Bluetooth SIG's product directory, and while the SIG is famously tight-lipped about revealing gory details about its members' unreleased wares, we see that it's a "Phone, Handheld" running Windows Mobile 6.1 Smartphone. Then again, given the name and the Q series' storied history, we probably could've gathered that -- and we can probably also count on it having something to do with that Alexander we saw not long ago. Only question is, is the Alexander really two whole numbers in the integer line better than the Q9? Time'll tell.

[Via Cellpassion]

Krave? Knack? New phones listed on Verizon's latest rebate forms has us believing that we may be approaching the product marketing End Times where naming conventions reach a level of silliness never before fathomed. Take, for example, the ZN4 Krave from Motorola -- a phone previously known as the Blaze -- or the Sway and Knack from Samsung, the former being the u650 slider with a 2-megapixel camera. Why can't we just call that one "u650," Verizon? We'd be totally cool with that. Returning momentarily to the land of sanity, LG nabs the VX8360 and VX5500 on the lower end, a market segment where neither real nor made-up words bother finding their way onto the labels. Kind of refreshing, we think -- especially if the alternative is "Knack."

Even though all signs are pointing to a release later this month, we'll admit -- we were still secretly hoping that the rumored September 2 date would somehow magically hold for Sprint's release of the Touch Diamond. Even so, the carrier is reeling in some decent -- if not totally expected -- booty today in the form of the Motorola i365 and Renegade V950 alongside Samsung's M220 and M320 flips. The i365 becomes the baddest-ass phone in Sprint's iDEN arsenal, sporting what they call a "monolith form factor" (badass speak for "candybar," we think), mil-spec everything, and GPS. As Direct Connect goes, the V950 is pretty much everything the i365 is not, eschewing iDEN for QChat and offering all the creature comforts of a modern featurephone -- music player, camera, external controls, and a pair of decent displays for starters -- and although Sprint calls this one "ultra-rugged" as well, we don't think we could heave it against a wall quite as many times as we could the i365. From Samsung, the M220 and M320 are simple 1xRTT flips with essentially the same specs as one another, though the M320 tacks on a VGA camera (so in other words, it really may as well not have a camera, either). All four handsets are available now.

Read - Samsung M220, M320
Read - Motorola i365
Read - Motorola Renegade V950

Remember that wild, sporty W6 that Moto unveiled a few weeks back? TmoNews is claiming that T-Mobile will be picking up a suspiciously similar handset known as the MOTOACTV W450 in early September. There's really not terribly much going on here other than water resistance, apparently, with a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, media support with microSD slot (the phone's designed to be jogged with, after all), and that's pretty much it. Fortunately, the pleasure of shrieking at your own yellow keypad should only run you $30-50, so they say, when it launches.

Hey, Verizon customers, you're feeling a little warm to the touch over there. Could it be that you have -- be still our hearts! -- Motorola fever? As Motos go, Verizon's currently signed up to get two of the hotter upcoming models in the next few weeks, the ZN4 Blaze and the VU30 Rapture, both of which have been spied in the wild once more (looking basically ready for retail launch this time around, may we add). The VU30 is a fashion flip that takes some cues from its GSM-based U9 cousin featuring a glossy translucent shell, fat external display, and according to the latest rumors, a September 9 release date. The Blaze meanwhile looks more or less the same as the last time we saw it, leaving us to wonder what possessed Motorola to keep rolling with that eyesore of a giant, red-ringed medallion on the hinged lid. It's also rumored for a September date with destiny, though the exact day is unclear at this point -- and honestly, Motorola, if you want to push that back a month or two to make the badge less obnoxious, be our guest.

[Via phoneArena]

Tired of abysmal sound quality when yapping via PTT? Are your chirps not leading to responses in a timely fashion? Never fear, as Motorola is all over it. For better or worse (though probably better), Moto has released its next-generation push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) solution, which is optimized for CDMA 1x networks with EV-DO Rev. A data capability. According to the official verbiage, the new solution leverages the zippy protocol to provide "low call set-up time latency and improved quality of service (QoS)." Rev. A chirping -- who woulda thunk it?

We've been slipped a handy little document that indicates the dates that Sprint is currently targeting for the release of a few of its fall hotties, and although we already knew some of this stuff, it's always good to have some corroborating evidence in these situations. First up, the Motorola Renegade V950, i365, and Samsung M220 and M320 are all still apparently locked for September 2, as is the Touch Diamond. We've heard a groundswell of concern from tipsters that the Touch Diamond may have been bumped out to October -- it certainly wouldn't surprise us, given our jaded, overwhelmingly pessimistic personalities -- but here's hoping, anyway. It also looks like the just-released Katana Eclipse in silver will be getting pink and black siblings come October 16, along with an "LG LX600 Messaging Handset." We're not sure what the LX600 might be beyond what a confidentiality-bound FCC filing tells us, but the Rumor is getting a little long in the tooth, so it could conceivably be replacement device or a slightly higher-end QWERTY set that would sit somewhere above the Rumor in the lineup.

The FCC got first dibs, but now it's Target's turn to show off Motorola's latest iDEN debacle. Don't get us wrong, it's not that bad looking now that we get a better glance -- but still, that hulking external antenna sets off a gag reflex for us that's hard to suppress. Anyhoo, Target's product page reveals that it'll be a prepaid device for Sprint's Boost division, offering 600-contact capacity, 3.5-hour talk time, GPS, and oh yeah, did we mention a giant stub protruding from the top? It's claimed here that the i776 can be found in stores, but without an official announcement from Boost, it might be a little tricky to come across just yet.

[Via PhoneNews]

Far be it from Verizon to get left out of Motorola's RAZR-ish evolution recently observed in Sprint's VE20, the VU30 Rapture (no relation to the LG Vu -- trust us) should be hitting Big Red next month according to the latest data we've got on hand. The wait's always excruciating, we know, but phoneArena's picked up a few juicy bits of the user's manual for us all to chew on in the meanwhile. Looking over the documentation, it really is striking to see just how much the VU30 shares in common with its Sprint contemporary: a touch-sensitive external display for music controls, 2-megapixel camera, EV-DO, and a curvy shape that somehow manages to evoke the RAZRs of old without prompting us to gouge our eyes out, for example.

It's just a rollercoaster of emotions for these guys lately, isn't it? Executive musical chairs are getting to be old hat for Moto these days, and the very latest to sign his walking papers is Rob Shaddock, head of the handset division's consumer products group (in other words, the group all of the interesting hardware comes from). Oh, and yeah, he was only on the job for four months, having replaced Stu Reed back in April. For what it's worth, Motorola claims that Shaddock's departure was a foregone conclusion even before new co-CEO Sanjay Jha took the reigns, but really, that just makes things even more confusing since it means he really decided to leave (or was told to) after just three months and change. Whatever -- meanwhile, 30-year battle-tested Moto vet John Cipolla steps into the role, which should inject some nice, stale, inside thinking into the team's R&D.

The secret sauce to extending any phone's shelf life by at least a few months seems to be adding a new color or two into the mix (the Curve comes immediately to mind), and smartphones are no exception to the rule. It falls short of the lime green CDMA version's sheer wackiness, but AT&T's apparently getting ready to re-launch its venerable Motorola Q9h in gray, which is kind of like the original black except... you know, lighter. Seeing how Windows Mobile 6.1 is now official on this one, it comes as no surprise that these gray ones are showing up with the update preloaded; it's always a nice touch when you don't need to christen your new purchase with a hastily-installed update, isn't it? It's unknown what we'll be charged for the pleasure of owning one of these, but we'd assume it'll fall in line with the current version at $100 after rebate.

It's amazing the kinds of neat things that can happen once you manage to turn lemons into even just a drop or two of bittersweet lemonade. Take Motorola, for example: a manufacturer that's fallen on hard times by even the loosest definitions manages to turn a sliver of profit for itself, and boom, suddenly you've got yourself a shiny new CEO and a smiling analyst or two. Jim Suva of Citi Investments seems to be going to bat for Moto at a time when everyone was just about ready to abandon ship, saying that the most recent earnings announcement represented the "early innings a gradual steady improvement", expressing confidence that new CEO Jha's hiring was a good thing, and hooking up the company's stock with a "buy" rating. 'Round here, we judge a company's success mainly by the greatness of its hardware, but you need solid financials to fund the R&D to make said hardware happen -- so we suppose this really could be a solid start to a genuine turnaround.

Okay, Samsung, we get it: you're really good at pounding out the cheap clamshells. Point taken. Oh, what's that, you say? You still feel like you have something to prove? Oh, well then by all means, dump another couple $20 flips on Sprint! Please, we insist. As expected, it looks like we'll all have the fabulous opportunity to pick up our choice of the M220 or M320 for $19.99 come September 2, offering Bluetooth, speakerphone, and in the case of the M320, a VGA camera.

Out of the Moto camp, we get the i365 ruggedized brickphone for iDEN fanboys and fangirls -- you know who you are, so stop looking around -- which will run $90 and include Bluetooth despite its early-90s appeal. Finally, the most exciting of the foursome has to be the V950 Renegade, but excitement comes at a cost: $199.99, to be exact. In this case, your pair of Benjamins is going to net you QChat capability, Bluetooth, a 2 megapixel cam, microSD expansion, and external music controls, which makes it just about the coolest Direct Connect phone going. Line starts over here, folks.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

The follow-on to Motorola's sporty and moderately popular (for a stereo bluetooth headset, anyway) S9 may not have launched yet -- a disappointment, considering the original plan for a Q2 release when it was announced at CES -- but perhaps a little last-minute paint job was the reason for the delay. We've now spotted the S9-HD in a bright white getup with blue accents, a far cry from the black of the model shown at CES (and presumably still slated for launch) or the red of the original, but let's not kid ourselves: this one has a way better chance of finding its way into an ear canal or two. Hopefully we'll see it within a few weeks -- just in time for a successor to be launched at CES 2009, no doubt.