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?

ASUS, creator of the EEE PC and thus the netbook craze, had embraced producing a smartbook at one time, only to back off from the possibility in subsequent statements. CEO Jerry Shen has ended the speculation, saying that the Taiwanese company will produce a smartbook for release in the first quarter of 2010, for a price equivalent to about $180.

The statement came during an investor conference in Taiwan, and Shen claimed that the ASUS smartbook device could be the “secret weapon” that helps ASUS recreate the peak reached with the original EEE PC release. ASUS had demonstrated a branded smartbook earlier this year at CompuTex (pictured right), but the device quickly disappeared from view and hasn’t been seen again.

• EVDO Rev. A
• GPS- Assisted and standalone
• Removable memory- 16 GB
• System memory- 512 MB
• Removable battery
• Wi-Fi
• 5 MP Camera- DVD quality video recording supported
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• Onscreen virtual keyboard
• Android 2.0

The Droid will have the standard 3-screen home screen that Android provides but will be augmented by widgets from Verizon for user customization. It will support Exchange email out of the box, in addition to POP3 and IMAP. All of the expected Google apps are present and accounted for: Maps, Latitude, Talk, Voice Search, Gmail and Calendar. Verizon is also shipping the Droid with these apps: Corporate Calendar, Amazon MP3, Gallery, Music, Visual Voice Mail, Android Market and YouTube.

Droid is the first phone to feature the new Google Maps Navigation, offering free turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps. The phone will be available Nov. 6 for $199 with a 2-year contract. This price is after a mail-in rebate of $100.

A new program has launched today that attempts to bring the same capability to the Android platform. The Asurion Mobile Addressbook carries the social mix further by combining all of the popular networks with IM and bringing it right into the address book on the Android phone. It uses filtering so the user can prevent information overload. And it’s built on an open framework so developers can add their own systems into the Mobile Addressbook, allowing for additional capability.

The program is free and there’s a long presentation about Mobile Addressbook that can be viewed to get a feel for everything the app can do. Note to Asurion — put up a video demo of the program in action, not a boring presentation.

The application will initially be available for the BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Curve 8320 and BlackBerry Bold smartphones, with plans to add other handsets in the future. You will need a Boingo mobile account to take advantage of the hotspots on your BlackBerry.

The enTourage folks aren’t skirting around the desire users have for using such a reader for web work, and as such have chosen Android. They are touting the ability of the eDGe to surf the web, work with email, play MP3s and even check Facebook. Connectivity is done over Wi-Fi or optional EVDO/HSPA 3G. That big, color touchscreen with resistive digitizer would be nice for web work, but is likely hard on battery life. The eDGe looks a lot like that mythical Courier device on which Microsoft is reportedly working.

The eDGe will ship in February 2010, but you can pre-order one now. If you can get past that $490 price tag, that is.

The new app from Canon prints over Wi-Fi, in a variety of sizes. You can select multiple photos on the phone and print up to 20 copies for Grandma and the rest of the family. The app is free, so get printing.

“At this time [Motorola] feels that the Android platform gives it a richer, more consistent foundation with strong support for the ecosystem and developer community.”

Image courtesy SlashGear

That blazing-fast HTC Leo running the 1 GHz Snapdragon processor is confirmed to be heading to these shores in the first quarter of next year. The HD2, as it will be called, is the Windows Mobile 6.5 phone that burned through all the benchmarks in record time due to that fast processor. It also has a sweet 4.3-inch screen, the better to display those fast graphics.

Interestingly, even though HTC has the TouchFLO 3D interface on Windows Mobile, and the Sense interface on Android, the company claims that the Leo is running the Sense interface. Check out the video of the HD2 our friends at SlashGear grabbed. It’s ironic that the new WM browser is one of the high points of the Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade, but HTC is going with Opera Mobile. That would be because Opera is a much better browser.

Documents To Go for iPhone is $9.99 in the iTunes store, but there’s a $14.99 version as well. For an extra $5, DataViz offers support for Microsoft Exchange attachments — both sending and receiving supported documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

BlackBerry Desktop Software, formerly known as BlackBerry Desktop Manager, provides complete control over phone handsets from the Mac. Which means Mac users will now be able to sync PIM information and iTunes playlists with genuine RIM software. Phone updates and app installations can be handled from the Mac when OTA options are not available. The program should be available in the afternoon via the link above.

Samsung prices the netbook at $479.99 and says the 2GB module is valued at $69.99, which is very overpriced. For the deal, they’re “cutting” the memory price to $19.99, which is right in line with the market — I paid about $25 for a 2GB module a few months back — and they’re throwing in a $20 case as well. So, $499.99 gets you a Samsung N310 with Windows XP Home, 2GB of memory, long battery life and a case. My gut says that either Samsung isn’t installing the 2GB module for you or Microsoft is relaxing more of its netbook restrictions of late. Either way, it should only take a few minutes to install the RAM if you need to do so.

Image courtesy Gizmodo

The leaked photos of two Microsoft branded phones has injected life into the “Project Pink” rumors that have floated around for so long. The Pink phones were rumored to be similar to the Sidekick phones produced by Danger, a company acquired by Microsoft a few years back. These new photos show concept phones that are pretty much ready for release. They may be concepts but they sure look like they are ready to go.

The phones are reported to be produced by Sharp for Microsoft and will be co-branded by both companies. Sharp makes the hardware for the Sidekicks, so this makes sense. If this is true, and Microsoft is indeed going into the phone hardware business, then statements they’ve made in the past indicate they’ve learned how to manipulate the media much like their BFFs at Apple.

This comment was made by Microsoft back in April of this year, when the Pink rumors were running rampant:

“1) Microsoft is not going into the phone hardware business
2) Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone
3) We’re deepening our relationships with our hardware partners in order to create even better performing phones that are competitively priced, have the features people want, that are easy-to-use and just downright lustworthy. The upcoming availability of Windows Mobile 6.5 software will enable our OEM partners to build even more compelling devices in a wide-range of form factors for customers around the world.”

So if the Pink phones do get released as is now widely expected, it would seem Microsoft has learned how to skirt the issues. Its previous statement about “not going into the phone hardware business” would now seem to be carefully crafted. If you think about it, the comments don’t actually say there won’t be a “Microsoft phone;” only that Micrsoft won’t go into the phone hardware business. Enter Sharp, which is expected to be actually making the hardware for the Microsoft/Sharp phones. It would appear that the folks at Redmond are getting pretty darn crafty with their public statements. We’ll soon know, anyway.