Look out, HTC! There's another new Droid in town - that is, another new smartphone running on the Google Android OS besides the highly-hyped HTC Droid Eris - and it's coming from LG. It's the LG EVE, the aptly titled debut of LG's promised line of Android smartphones to look forward to.

Interesting on the name: EVE. Recent advertisements for the Droid have already stigmatized it before even hitting the stands as a "masculine" smartphone. So here comes a more feminine alternative, rolled out the same day, and running on the same shiny new mobile operating system from the geniuses over at Google.

So while the HTC Droid is targeted at guys who are into their gadgets (big on music, video, games, and apps), the LG EVE is targeted at social media addicts, with a killer aggregator for the Twitter, Facebook and Bebo set. A prediction on that: both smartphones will be competing viciously for the YouTube set.

The LG is a touchscreen smartphone and a keyboard smartphone with a 3" touchscreen with stupendous 480 x 320 pixel resolution and a built-in accelerometer and it has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Take your pick. The camera on the LG EVE, at 5 megapixels, could take over as the only digital camera you need too. And expandable up to 16 GB means you can hold plenty of photos - and home videos too! Yes, the EVE has video recording capabilities.

The price on the LG EVE makes for an interesting spread, as unlocked it costs around $400, but you can get it for about 70%, making it $49.95, with contract.

The first at bat was Motorola, working on a Sunday to announce on September 13 its new touchscreen smartphone aimed at social networking and social media lovers - called (appropriately) the Motorola Cliq (i.e. clique). Also known as the Motorola MC9500, this device that one online reviewer called "a lifestyle phone" will be offered by T-Mobile sometime in mid-October.

Integration with Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace is a major part of the Cliq's feature-set; the 5 megapixel camera, meanwhile, lends credence to the other interpretation of the word cliq (or click). Synchronization of these elements with a user's personal data (i.e. contacts, calendar, photos, blog posts, emails, and RSS feeds) into a feature called "Motoblur" is a highlight of this device.

Then yesterday, Monday September 14, 2009 - LG Electronics revealed its LG GW620. Featuring a 3" touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the GW620 is the best of both worlds (at least in the controls department). Little else is known about this tightly-guarded coming attraction.

Don't expect LG to dig its heels too deeply into the Google Android platform, though, as LG still remains a Microsoft Windows Mobile loyalist, with 13 new WinMo smartphones coming out from LG in the next year-and-a-half. In fact, the next LG Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone will be coming out on October 6, that is before the LG GW620 hits European shelves.

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 will include a new and improved Internet Explorer Mobile web browser that includes Flash support (something even the iPhone can't yet claim). WinMo 6.5 also features the Microsoft My Phone back-up service, immensely popular in Beta and finally taken out of Beta for full release for the first time. And WinMo 6.5 it will include the long-awaited Windows Marketplace for Moble app store.

But more than anything, this is an OS improvement, as Microsoft attempts to regain some serious ground lost to rivals RIM, Google, and Apple. For a more feature-filled upgrade, stay tuned for WinMo 7.0. It's biggest and best improvement - perhaps - no more need for the stylus. Windows Mobile 6.5 is "finger friendly" they say.

Meanwhile, a quote released by one of Motorola's senior engineers (ironic because Motorola has all but proposed to Google Android) suggests that WinMo 7.0 is already in manufacturer's hand in Beta. ,Supposedly according to LinkedIn leaks, Windows Mobile 7.0 will include a Microsoft Mobile version of Internet Explorer 7.0 or even 8.0, as well as a digital compass, an accelerometer, Nickname Cache, and Windows Live ID, among others.

HTC Magic: The second Google Android powered smartphone from HTC and the first from Vodafone, the Magic is smaller than the inaugural Google Phone, the HTC T-Mobile G1 and will first be distributed into hands overseas (U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain). Downsides? It doesn't have a physical keyboard, nor does the touchscreen keyboard operate in landscape mode.

Also unveiled from HTC, the HTC Touch Diamond2, HTC Touch Pro2, and the T-Mobile G2.

Acer M900: The business set will like this latest Windows Mobile smartphone, with its large 3.8" touchscreen, vast messaging capabilities, and--get this!--fingerprint scanner for cutting-edge security.

LG Arena: It was only a matter of time before we saw a 3D interface, and here it is, looking like the onscreen Rubiks Cube of menus.

Nokia E55: With its own take-off of the BlackBerry Sure-Type keypad.

A common thread for a lot of the devices unveiled this year is the built-in 5-megapixel camera--though the ones in the new Nokia N86 and Samsung Omnia HD sport 8 megapixels, and the Sony Ericsson Idou, with its enhanced touchscreen, has 12.1 and a sliding lens cover. So there!

And that was only 1 of 3 awards Palm's new iPhone-killer (the most promising looking contender for that position in 2009) which also won:

• the Best of CES Award in the Cellphone category
• the People's Voice Award

The LG Watch Phone, however, probably walked away with the Wow-Factor award of the year.

Meanwhile the Motorola Surf A3100 touchscreen smartphone earned itself a Best of CES nomination, at least. Motorola also rolled out its "Green" smartphone--in that it's built from recycled water bottles--the Renew W233 and it's rough-and-tumble AT&T Tundra A76r.

Other highlights of the introductions made at the 2009 CES include:

• RIM and T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 8900
• T-Mobile Shadow
• HTC S743
• as US version of the Nokia E63
• and the eagerly-anticipated Nokia N97

The quietest voice on the CES smartphone stage this year was no doubt Samsung, who barely had a thing to show but for the T-Mobile SGH-T119.

Instead, the LG Incite, a 3G touch screen smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, will be carried by none other than AT&T.

Equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and support for Microsoft Office documents, the Incite also includes support for AT&T Video Share, which allows people to share live videos over their wireless handsets while they’re on a voice phone call.

It also comes with AT&T’s Xpress Mail Service and AT&T Mobile Music service, adding heaps of value to the premiere AT&T LG that the Verizon LG can’t claim.

This has the Korean smartphone maker joining AT&Ts lineup (that already includes the best that Apple, Samsung, HTC, and BlackBerry have to offer) just in time for the holidays.

Avoiding specifics as to whether the releationship would remain in the realm of applications or venture into OS territory, chief Symbian-ite Nigel Clifford points out that Google and Symian have already been working closely together for a while now, mainly on search and mapping applications for Nokia smartphones.

It would be quite difficult for the two to merge their operating systems, so the likes of RIM and Apple don’t have too much to be nervous about, but the mutual back-scratching of the two giants in their respective industries leaves a lot for fellow partners Motorola, LG, Samsung, and others a lot to be excited about. Only time will tell however, what such a collaborative venture will produce.

Apple may have pioneered consumer-friendliness in technology, but Nokia pioneered quality, and they’ll do it again, and continue to do so, with the increasingly coveted touch screen next up at bat.

A flurry of blog postings in late 2006 about the Nokia Aeon (which doesn’t exist yet) gave a sneak peek into Nokia’s plans for improving upon Apple’s greatness. The innovation? A full-phone touch screen. In other words, a touch screen display that occupies the entirety of the face of the phone.

It was in the Research and Development stages then, and it’ll still be a while longer before such technology can be made viable, but that hasn’t stopped Nokia from putting its proverbial nose to the grindstone nonetheless and coming up with its first entry in the touch screen arena.

Proving that battling Apple requires strategic planning on multiple fronts, Nokia’s as yet unnamed first touch screen venture will be an unlimited music phone. Look for it later this year.