Every so often, Nokia will pop out a brick-like beast of a clamshell smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard -- a black sheep in Espoo's lineup in every sense of the word. These so-called Communicators even had their own custom Symbian-based operating system, Series 80, until the E90 came around and brought 'em in line with the rest of the S60 crowd. Of course, S60 just took a big leap to the world of touch today, and that means the E90's starting to fall a bit behind -- so what's next? Nokia dropped a little teaser during its webcast today in the form of a stylized touch-based concept bearing strong family ties to the E90 and its ancestors, suggesting S60 5th Edition won't spell doom for the form factor. If it materializes, history suggests it won't be a mainstream device -- but if the real thing can look as good as this render, who knows?

We'll be honest, we see nothing wrong with just phoning someone up and venting your frustrations, but for those looking to insert yet another layer in their relationship, Project E could apparently help. This interesting prototype consists of a web-based backbone (Eco), a central hub (that Exo creature pictured to the right), and a wearable piece of jewelry (Evo). Essentially, these Bluetooth-enabled devices respond to gestural based inputs and can communicate your feelings to other Project E members, and just in case you're feeling adventurous, you can pair up your Evo with a complete stranger and immediately have them added to your aggravation contact list. All in all, this just smells all too tweeny for us to dig, but we're sure there's a niche out there somewhere willing to give it some love.

It's no secret that the actual launch of Nokia's E90 was imminent, and while you've had plenty of time to read reviews, stare at press shots, and drool over hands-on photo sessions, now it's time to party. A camera-wielding blogger was able to drop in on the fairly large launch event held in Jakarta and snap a few photos of geeks grappling to boot theirs up the fastest. Of course, we're sure you wish you were somewhere amongst the hordes, but feel free to leap on through for more of the action -- and to think, just under a month ago some impatient soul paid a whopping $5,000 for this bad boy.

Beating the rest of the field to the punch, Samsung dropped the SyncMaster 225U today, the first official product designed to interface with Microsoft's Office Communicator 2007 IM / VoIP / PBX "unified communications" suite we saw unveiled in beta form just a couple days ago. The 22-inch monitor has a pretty average panel -- 1680 x 1050 resolution, 5ms response time, a 700:1 contrast ratio, and just 300 nits of brightness -- but the real noise is in the built-in 2.0 megapixel webcam, microphone, and stereo speakers, which plug into the Communicator software and then serve as a replacement for that bulky deskphone in your office. No word yet on pricing or availability, but expect to see a slew of Communicator products in the future.

Update: Samsung PR tell us that the SyncMaster 225U will be available in June for $449.

You saw the first photos right here on Engadget. Now, Nokia brings the official specs on their S60-series E90 Communicator. Like we heard, it brings quad-band GSM, WiFi, and HSDPA radios along with a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash (and second up front for video calls). Better yet, it does indeed pack integrated GPS and Nokia Maps for all you corporate jet-setters. Expect the E90 to hit in Q2 (volume shipments in Q3) for an unsubsidized price of between "750-800" -- they don't say but we're thinking that's euros or about $1000 of the green stuff. Damn, best put this one on the corporate account where it belongs.

We fully understand how hard it's going to be for anything to top this in terms of handheld sexiness, but Edgetech International must be using a design team stuck in the early '90s, and a marketing squad not too far removed from the Phantom confines. The firm's latest handheld, simply dubbed The Edge, is a smallish portable internet machine that bears striking resemblance to a old fashioned pocket organizer, and reportedly provides true wireless internet all the time. Claimed to be "non-carrier specific," Edgetech doesn't exactly expound upon how its fliptop machine can consistently pull in internet access from anywhere, and doesn't even feel the need to describe the specs for us. Nevertheless, we do know that it can purportedly enable subscribers to "conduct a wide variety of e-mail and voice mail options, all by voice command." The strangely mysterious device reportedly comes with a $200 pricetag, while the wireless connectivity runs you around $50 per month, but until our current selection of smartphones forget how to access those 2.5G, 3G, and 4G networks, we're good.

[Via TGDaily]

Ok, you know the drill by now. HowardForums has a purported shot (on left) of the thinner, sexier successor to the VX9800 communicator, the LG VX9900 we first trolled from the FCC (pic on the right) back in May. We're still hoping for this QWERTY clam to roll on Verizon sometime this month as reported by our own Boy Genius or sometime between September 29th and October 13th according to the rumor jockeys ridin' the HoFo. Hell, let's just say any day now and leave it at that mkay?

[Thanks, Scott and Sunny]