The smartphone sector is one of the fastest moving sectors in the mobile tech space. New phones appear almost daily, and the resultant race for the latest and greatest is a hectic one. Savvy consumers may be the only ones concerned about technical details such as OS version installed on a given phone, but it can make a big difference when it comes time to make a purchase. It is not always a given that smartphone X will get the next big OS upgrade, and even if it does the timing of said upgrade is not always fast. That leads to the question — how fast is fast enough for smartphone upgrades?

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You can expect to see two more netbooks on store shelves when visiting AT&T this holiday season. Later this month, both the Acer Aspire One and the Samsung Go will appear in the cellular carrier’s brick-and-mortar locations. They’ll also be available online at a netbook product page on AT&T’s web site, which is already live. Both devices run Microsoft Windows 7 Starter Edition and are configured with an Intel Atom processor, 160 GB hard drive, integrated webcams and 1 GB of memory. The price for either is $199 after a promotional card rebate and requires a new 2-year data agreement. The standard 5 GB plan is $60 a month, but AT&T is lowering the 200 MB plan cost to $35 a month from $40. Strangely, the AT&T netbook site currently shows the Acer and a Dell Mini 10 for $149, along with a Lenovo S-10 for $99.

Although it’s been said many times and many ways (GigaOM Pro, subscription required) — yes, I’m prepping for Christmas carols — that $199 netbook is really costing you much more due to the monthly data service. If you don’t plan to use the netbook outside of the home or office where you have Wi-Fi, I wouldn’t recommend the purchase. In a more stationary case, you’re better off just buying a device at full price for $350 or $400 with no monthly fee. Having said that, I’m starting to wonder about the success, or failure, of notebook subsidies. I’d love to see some breakout numbers of how many netbooks are subsidized as opposed to how many are bought outright. I know that the subsidy model is a little more prominent outside of the U.S., but I don’t expect that sales of subsidized netbooks are very high here.

Do we have any readers that have bought or considered buying a subsidized netbook?

This is usually the season for door-busting sales, but I think this one has to do with reducing inventory more than anything. MSI is touting a new online promotion in India, the UK, Australia and Italy, and although I’m not near any of those parts, I checked it out. The promotional link took me to a deal for a free MSI Wind netbook with the purchase of an X600 notebook. The free netbook is the same U100 model I purchased in 2008 and is worth roughly $350. To get the deal, you actually have to print out the online coupon and take it to specific vendors.

Purchasing the X600 gets you a skinny 15.6″ notebook with 1366 x 768 resolution running on an Intel ULV chip and ATI Radeon HD 4330 graphics processor. The 2.1-kilogram notebook with 6-cell battery should run for nearly a full workday, and of course, you can always migrate over to your free netbook if you run out of juice.

Sony’s old PRS-500 eBook reader gains a new trick with the addition of ePub format support, says MobileRead. Oh, but it’s quite a trick to get the support. While one would expect this to be a simple firmware update, it isn’t. Well, it’s either that or it’s a way for you to get a new model — you be the judge. To get ePub support, you’ll need to send in your PRS-500 to a Sony Service Center. Sony will “update the firmware” — so it is just a firmware update, yes? — and return your reader to you within 14 days. Plan B is to trade up. Sony will give you $50 off of the $199 Reader Pocket Edition or $75 off the $299 Reader Touch Edition if you trade in your older device. Both of the newer models already support ePub, so you gain the new format as well as a newer device if you go the trade-in route. Don’t wait too long to decide — Sony is migrating its eBook platform and store to ePub before the end of the year.

Early adopters of the PRS-500 might be on the fence here, but if it were me and I had the money, I’d probably take advantage of the upgrade for a little cost savings. The newer devices have a faster refresh rate, 8-level grey scale and, in the case of the Touch Edition, offers a touchscreen display. Nice to see Sony give a little something to the first Reader customers.

This morning finds me back at the car repair shop that I visited a couple of days ago. It’s not that I find it a comfortable place to work — no, that’s not why I’m here. They had to order parts to finish the repairs to my old Volvo, and this morning the work is being done.

I’m sitting here in the waiting room, in typical waiting room chairs that are in no way conducive to working comfortably. I’m using three pieces of mobile tech, however, and that makes the work experience a productive one.

The Lenovo ThinkPad x200 is sitting in my lap currently, and I’m using it in laptop configuration. Typing is the task at hand, so laptop it is. I’m connected to the web via the Verizon MiFi, which is throwing its 3G goodness out for me to tap into my personal hotspot. These two gadgets are more than enough to get the job done, but I’m using a third simply because it makes it easy.

The Droid is out, too, and I’m using it for a certain task that experimentation shows me makes the most sense: to keep up with the hundreds of RSS feeds I track. I can easily do this on the laptop, but I found that I can spin through the huge number of feed items that constantly roll in faster using the Droid. I use the Google Reader page optimized for the iPhone, and that works perfectly on the Droid. I spin through the article titles, tap the yellow star to flag something to return to later, and basically fly through the feeds as fast as I can swoop down the page with my finger.

Once I’ve caught up with the feeds, I jump over to the ThinkPad and access the items I’ve flagged on the Droid. I can honestly say that I’ve covered as much ground, perhaps even more, than I do using just a browser on the PC. Maybe tasks like this explain the high Droid web usage being reported.

I had a flashback moment while sitting here working away. The repair shop has a TV in the waiting room, tuned to the local Fox News. I don’t normally watch Fox, but a glance up at the screen took me back. It seems one of the anchors is the Fox reporter who visited Mobile Tech Manor three years ago to interview me about the unboxing video phenomenon. It was a pleasant and unexpected flashback.

Augmented Reality (AR) is one of those cool technologies (subscription required) that fascinates me. The ability to merge what is seen through a phone camera into the real world and leverage it in useful ways is awesome. When the cool factor settles down, I’m left with the reality of AR, and that is trying to find real-world uses for it that add benefit. Car Finder by Intridea is a good example of a real benefit that AR can bring the user in everyday life.

How many of us have parked our car in a huge parking lot, and then searched for it when we return? It can be especially challenging at sporting events, when all you can see is what seems like miles of cars between you and your car. Car Finder eliminates that frustration by using the iPhone 3GS camera to show you where you left your car. You tell the program where you are when you park the car, and when you return it shows you where the car is, superimposed over those miles of other cars. It’s a useful app with a real-world benefit, and it only costs you 99 cents.

Many moons ago I used SPB Wallet on my Pocket PC. And by many moons, I mean not long after Y2K — you kids will have to look that one up on Wikipedia. The application stores passwords, credit card numbers and other personal data in a virtual wallet. There was also a Windows desktop companion program, which made it easier to access and edit information. At long last, SPB announces support for Mac OS X, and it looks pretty slick and just as functional as its venerable Windows counterpart.

“The desktop component, previously available exclusively for Windows, is created to enable Wallet users to easily manage and arrange their sensitive data in a more convenient way, on a bigger screen and with a bigger keyboard. The Mac version of this software provides users with capabilities of editing data, syncing it with an iPhone or an iPod touch over Wi-Fi, as well as syncing every wallet with Google mailbox. It can also be synchronized with Windows Mobile and Symbian versions of SPB Wallet if the devices are connected via USB in Mass Storage mode.”

The OS X version of SPB Wallet is $14.95, but like most all SPB products can be used for a 15-day free trial. This is a bit of software that I used to install on every one of my devices, much like eReader and a few other utilities. If you’re looking for a place to securely store and carry personal info, I recommend taking a look at SPB Wallet.

Microsoft just released Windows Mobile 6.5 last month, but already, there’s talk of testing Windows Mobile 7. That might explain why 6.5 is more of a minor bump after all the time between it and the prior version. WMPowerUser caught wind of the “Maldives” WinMo 7 tester program, allegedly slated for the first quarter of 2010. Now by “tester program” I mean testing by handset manufacturers, not for average Joes and Janes. And there’s no indication that Windows Mobile 7 will hit any earlier than the third quarter of 2010. But it’s a positive sign as other mobile operating systems have caught up to, and in many ways passed, Windows Mobile over the last two years alone.

The big question in my mind isn’t where Windows Mobile 7 will be when it arrives, but rather, where will all of its competitors be at that time. Apple appears to be on a major release schedule each June or July with updated handsets and new operating system features. Google is proving that it can press the gas pedal with Android updates, too — not long after version 1.6 hit the air, we saw a flashier version 2.0 arrive. Nokia’s first Maemo phone is now shipping, but updates for that platform have no history to form a basis. BlackBerry also continues to move forward and, of course, some of us are still waiting for more great things from Palm.

Three quarters of a year can be a lifetime for mobile devices, so my hope is that Microsoft debuts something that’s ahead of its time with Windows Mobile 7.

Say what you will about Palm Pre owners, they are by and large an innovative lot. An enterprising (and electrically savvy) Pre owner has extended the homebrew scene from apps to the physical and built a car mount for his Pre using the Touchstone charger.

The enterprising individual has detailed the process and explained the whys and wherefores of the components chosen for the project. The Pre sits on the Touchstone charger by magnetic connection, and according to the hobbyist, the phone sits firmly on the mount. If you decide to tackle such a project yourself, bear in mind that tinkering with the car’s electrical system can be dangerous, and you could have horrific consequences if proper care is not exercised. Pretty cool, though.

The folks behind Firefox are still hard at work on Fennec, the mobile version of the popular browser. A new beta version 1.0b5, known officially as Firefox for Maemo, is out for the Nokia N810 and N900, and our buddy Matt Miller is taking it for a test spin. It sounds like the most significant change with this beta is it now has official Firefox branding, hinting that the full version can’t be far behind.

Matt found the browser to be a little “slow and buggy,” but that’s to be expected from a beta version. The Mozilla Fennec team has added lots of tweaks as development progresses, including:

• Enabled official branding, with Firefox name and logo
• Support for localizations, currently including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Russian
• Enabled plugins
• Viewport meta tag support
• Fixed a number of sites that resize their content after the page is loaded
• Added a form assistant to make filling forms easier
• Improved panning performance and behavior
• Zooming doesn’t jump around anymore
• Numerous other bugs and polish issues addressed