Nokia lovers rejoice! Last week smartphone stalwart Nokia released its newest candy-bar style smartphone, the Nokia 6220 Classic, a quad-band GSM smartphone with 3G, HSDPA, and EDGE data connectivity.

Microsoft Office users will appreciate that the Nokia 6220 lets them view and edit Office documents, but they may find it a bit frustating to perform those tasks without a QWERTY keyboard on the phone.

One of the most striking features of this new, Bluetooth compatible, Symbian powered smartphone is its 5 mega-pixel camera using Carl Zeiss optics and featuring a Xenon flash, auto-focus ability, video recording capabilities as high as 30 frames/second. It even comes with a second camera to be used for video calling.

And that’s just the tip of the multimedia iceberg for the new Nokia, as it also includes an integrated FM radio, a music player compatible with many different codecs, MPEG4 video-playing ability, and even the possibility of watching regular television on the 2.2” screen.

Palm has just announced the upcoming release of an unlocked version of their popular Palm Centro smartphone. Available form both Verizon Wireless and Sprint Mobile, the new unlocked Palm Centro will give users a lot more versatility about what they can now do on their devices, and most excitingly how much they can customize and personalize their devices to suit their own unique needs.

A GSM smartphone, the unlocked Centro will also feature support for the increasingly popular Google Maps application with the unparalleled My Location for Centro feature included.

The unlocked Palm Centro will otherwise retain the same general look and feel of the previous, locked Centro, still Palm’s smallest and lightest-weight design, though the unlocked Centro will be white in color with gray accents.

• the HTC P3470 - a GSM mobile phone running Windows Mobile 6 with the TomTom Navigator 6 built in;
• the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - a touch screen smartphone with 100 adjustable panels poised to become the iPhone biggest competitor this year;

Also announced was the first mobile phone processor from Nvidia, world leading maker of visual computing, graphics processor technologies. The new technology, dubbed APX 2500, is - as you might expect - designed for handheld devices with multimedia capabilities.

Stay tuned here throughout the year for reviews of the above-mentioned products and many more of the latest and greatest new releases debuted at the event.

Among the common traits both smartphones share are:

• TouchFLO touchscreen technology
• flush-mounted screens
• an ergonomic body with a rubber grip for comfort
• a minimalist design with just a D-pad and two-buttons below the screen

From there, the two smartphones start to diverge. For starters, the HTC Touch Dual has a longer and narrower face while the HTC Touch has a shorter and wider face. Which is thinner? Surprisingly, the HTC Touch, despite that the HTC Touch Dual looks thinner.

Beyond look and feel, quite likely the greatest difference between the two devices is the slide-out numeric keypad that comes only as part of the HTC Touch Dual.

Currently, however, the HTC Touch is the only one of the two available for U.S. users, with both smartphones out in European GSM models. Service on the CDMA US model of the HTC Touch is with Sprint.

Check out the entire comparison and view extensive full-color photos of both HTC smartphones, at Gear Diary.