HTC's Asian outpost Dopod has officially announced two of its corporate parent's more hotly-anticipated models today -- the Vox and the Cavalier -- in the form of the C500 and C730, respectively. The C500, which has already seen retail duty in Europe as the Orange SPV E650, is arguably the more unique of the two with a spring-loaded QWERTY slide to accompany a full numeric keypad up front; sadly, 3G data is left entirely out of the equation. The C730 is the HSDPA follow-on to the Excalibur with a 2 megapixel cam and a rather comely (in our humblest of opinions) black shell. Thankfully, both come loaded with Windows Mobile 6 Standard. Look for the C500 this month for about $490, while C730 fans will have to wait until next month and shell out another hundred at $590.

Read - Dopod C500
Read - Dopod C730

Kudos to T-Mobile for rushing (in relative terms) Windows Mobile 6 to its Dash, an honorable move that makes it the first carrier to launch a Windows Mobile 6 device in the US. We've had a chance to run through the re-upped device today, and, well, what can we say: it's a faithful implementation of Windows Mobile 6 Standard. As we've said before, Windows Mobile 6 is an extraordinarily incremental upgrade; the new operating system alone probably doesn't warrant rushing out tomorrow and picking up a shiny new Dash, but for existing owners, we can't think of a better way to close out the week. Click on for the glorious visuals.

Unboxing plain ol' released products is so 2006. The hip new thing is unboxing products that have yet to be released, like this here HTC Cavalier, and to a lesser extent, the iPhone. Boy Genius, international man of mystery, does the honors on this one, and while we don't see a box anywhere in sight, he makes up for it with a myriad of pics, so we're going to take his word for it that there was a box somewhere in these proceedings. As for the phone, that 400MHz processor, side mounted touch-wheel and 2 megapixel camera look just as promising in the flesh as they do on those oft-leaked spec sheets. Unfortunately, the phone seems to share its progenitor's curse of looking odd for the camera, but if it's as good in person as the Excalibur, we could still have a winner here. Unfortunately, HTC has sent out word that the phone is currently "postponed indefinitely," so we'll have to see what's up with that before we get our hopes too high for this little HSDPA number. Check another pic after the break, or peep the read link for the whole collection.

It's Black Friday, which for many people means long lines, money lost, and war with your fellow man over this and that gadget. Hopefully not here at Engadget though, we're just gonna give some gear away. This time it's a T-Mobile Dash, just about the hottest smartphone on the US market right now. It features:

• 2.4-inch transflective TFT display
• Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• 128MB flash, 64MB SDRAM, microSD slot
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• myFaves support
• 960mAh battery (vs 1130mAh on the Moto Q)
• 4.4 x 2.5 x 0.5-inch body (vs 4.57 x 2.5 x 0.47-inches on Q)
• 4.2 ounces (vs 4.06 ounces on Q)

Just leave us a comment below, and later today we'll announce the winners. Oh, and do mind the rules:

• You may only enter for this prize today.
• You may enter other Engadget contests, however...
• You may only enter this contest once; if you enter more than once on this particular contest post you'll be automatically disqualified and barred from all future giveaways. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) You may enter future Engadget relaunch giveaway contests though!
  
• You can only win once.
  
• Contest is open ot US residents only.
  

P.S. -Just in case you miss your chance to win the Dash here, T-Mobile's giving one away every day through Christmas. Check it out over at T-Mobile Dash-a-Day (no relation to hack a day).

P.P.S -Oh, by the way, we were thinking of making this our last Black Friday giveaway. But if we can get to 7,000 entries on the Dash by, say, 11:00PM EST tonight we might be convinced to throw in another Nikon D40 to give away before Black Friday comes to a close. So get entering!

Right on cue, now that everyone's got an Excalibur (i.e. T-Mobile Dash), HTC's latest creation shows up online. Obviously the successor to the sleek Excalibur, the Cavalier doesn't look as refined to these jaded eyes, but it's certainly got the horsepower under the hood to make up for its sharper, more Blackberry-esque lines. For starters, that 200MHz OMAP is now a 400MHz, which is just what's needed to power the UMTS / HSDPA. It's also got a higher capacity battery (though not by much -- 1050mAh over 960), a 2 megapixel camera, and the requisite 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0. Don't worry about it though, it won't make it to America until late spring by our wholly unscientific estimates, so your investment is safe for at least a couple months before importers make you miserable with longing.

Even though Boy Genius managed to get his hands on the HTC Excalibur and the T-Mobile Dash like, way before we did, we still got a unit to take around the block ourselves. It's safe to say the Dash is probably the most T-Mobile anticipated device of the second half of this year, and with good reason. We've loved this thing ever since we laid hands on it -- don't let the pictures fool you, it's way smaller and sleeker than most photos let on. In all reality, the Dash is a fairly unphotogenic device -- which is why we had to make sure to take some bigger and better than usual photos of it. Those angled corners off the screen and the thinning metal bezel on the face makes it look pear-shaped and odd. But once you wrap your hands around it, you'll understand why this is the hottest Smartphone on the American market.

Well, we can finally talk about the Dash. Not that we weren't talking about it before, but you know what we mean. T-Mobile's debuting the device today; you already know what the hell it is, so let's cut to the chase on specs:

• 2.4-inch transflective TFT display
• Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• 128MB flash, 64MB SDRAM, microSD slot
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• myFaves support
• 960mAh battery (vs 1130mAh on the Moto Q)
• 4.4 x 2.5 x 0.5-inch body (vs 4.57 x 2.5 x 0.47-inches on Q)
• 4.2 ounces (vs 4.06 ounces on Q)

It's selling for $350 without contract, $250 with 1 year, and $199 with two years (and rebates, etc.), and will be available the 25th of this month. Want more on this sucka? Then peep our review!

While we'd secretly hoped we'd see the T-Mobile Dash before September was out, we've gotten hold of some internal T-Mobile documentation that tells us October 16 is the date. We've always been told not to look a gift horse in the mouth (whatever that means) so we're going to keep our mouths shut and just thank the good folks at T-Mobile for seeing fit to launch HTC's Q-munching Excalibur at all. Keep reading for a transcript of their "Selling Aid" cheat sheet for the Dash -- something tells us it'll pretty much sell itself, but kudos to T-Mob for making sure their peeps are properly informed!

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Oh come on, shots like these wouldn't be fun if they weren't blurry. The chap who sent this one in, Indianboy, mentioned that WiFi was definitely a go on the Excalibur, as well as the Q-rivaling jog strip thing, and a resolution greater -- yes, greater -- than QVGA. Why you'd really need greater than QVGA resolution on a Smartphone is beyond us, but who are we to argue with HTC?

P.S. -Yes, that's a T-Mobile theme, hint, hint.

We've gotta take this one with a grain of salt, thanks to an unconfirmed source and that sketchy paste job on the screen, but if this pic and its accompanying deets prove true, we're in for a treat. Codenamed "Excalibur," we heard about HTC's attempt at a Q/i320 killer last month, and it seems to be shaping up nicely. Beyond the obvious QWERTY action, the quad-band phone will supposedly feature WiFi, and will be 2mm thicker than the i320. To the side of the screen is an interesting touch-jog strip for scrolling (in lieu of the Q's jog dial) with top and bottom touch buttons to open the Start menu and go back. Looking good HTC, now if you'll just confirm the device, mix in some 3G data and ship a few to the States at $150 each we'll be all set.

HTC, making sure that the enjoyment of our fresh Star Trek is kept to an absolute minimum, looks to be preparing a spectrum of lustworthy new devices. This information is entirely unconfirmed, and we don't know much about what we're about to tell you -- some of these code names are as new to us as they are to you -- but we can tell you it comes from a reliable source.

First up, the Muse has been mercifully renamed the "Melody," and the Triolgy has become "Monet." The Hermes, which is just starting to drop across Europe, has been upped to 400MHz for full-scale production; you might recall we recently reported that O2 was bringing a 400MHz Hermes to the table, and it now appears this will be standard fare for launches going forward. Trinity (pictured) specs are coming into focus, and we should expect this beast to throw down HSDPA, WiFi, and integrated GPS. There have been some rumblings of an "Artemis" recently, and that device still appears to be on the map, bringing integrated GPS and a trackball (wha?) but topping out with EDGE data. The "Herald" sounds positively gorgeous, similar in concept and functionality to the Hermes but measuring just 17mm thick. The Foreseer and Monet will be joined by the "Oxygen" in HTC's mobile TV lineup, though we don't know which standard it'll be packing. Looking to steal some of the Q's thunder, the "Excalibur" will be getting its QWERTY on and running Smartphone. Finally, look for "Vera" as a possible successor to the Star Trek, packing HSDPA and a front-facing camera for video calling.

That's a lot of unconfirmed data to digest, we know, and we're still trying to make sense of it all ourselves. No word on release windows for most of these -- if we could divine you a Vera tomorrow, we would -- but as always, we'll be burning the midnight oil in our quest for deets.