” That timeframe meshes nicely with the August 7th launch date that a pair of Radio Shack insiders shared with us last week, though until we receive confirmation otherwise, it’s within reason to expect that devices will begin to ship before or even after that date. Either way, it doesn’t look like you’ll need to hold out much longer for your Thrill, with only a few more days of tranquility to go before the excitement begins.

The R225, made by ZTE, has a very basic set of features. It has an alphanumeric keypad just below its 1.8-inch 160 x 128 resolution display. The R225 also has access to AT&T MEdia Mall, Mobile Email, and messaging, and a WPA web browser. Its 800mAh battery is good for up to 5.3 hours of talk time or up to 15 days of standby.

The R225 is available now for $19.99 with an AT&T prepaid plan and shipping is free.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 device is targeted at “potentially explosive environments,” such as chemical manufacturing and petrochemical industry sites, as well as military applications. The phone meets MIL-SPEC 810 F/G standards, sports a 2.8 inch touchscreen display, a QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, push-to-talk support, GPS, and is less than one in thick. The phone can survive 26 drops from nearly 50 inches and is shock proof for transport across 1,000 miles of bumpy terrain. AT&T also says it can withstand 95 percent humidity for 48 hours and can be submerged in 5 feet of water for 30 minutes.

AT&T says it’s available today, although it’s not currently listed on the carrier’s website and pricing has not yet been announced.

AT&T is putting out a lot of cell phones, and one of them is the Nokia 2330. This one isn’t the iPhone, as it is simply a candy bar phone that isn’t too advanced.

The Nokia 2330 has a VGA camera, an FM radio, Bluetooth, speakerphone, personal organizer, as well as a WAP browser. It is availble for free with a service contract.

AT&T has officially announced the LG eXpo (also known as LG Monaco and LG IQ), presented as the United States’ first phone to feature a 1GHz CPU, as well as the first to have an optional integrated pico projector.

The eXpo is actually not a simple phone, but a smartphone that runs Windows Mobile 6.5 and features a WVGA touchscreen display, full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA, GPS, 5MP camera and MicroSD card support.

Another nice feature of the eXpo is AuthenTec’s “Smart Sensor” fingerprint recognition, “which delivers a new level of added smart and personal security unlike any other mobile phone in the market.”

LG eXpo is the second LG handset announced by AT&T this month (after the Shine II) and it will be available starting December 7. The smartphone is priced at $199.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate (a $69.99 plan is required). The optional LG Mobile Projector should be available shortly after, for $179.99.

First announced by AT&T at the beginning of October, the Pantech Impact will be available starting this Sunday (22 November).

The Impact is a weird messaging phone, featuring a “high-gloss faceplate” with haptic-enabled keys, and a full QWERTY keyboard. The handset also has two displays: a small external one and a larger internal one.

Other features include 3G, GPS, music player, AT&T HTML mobile browser, photo camera, video recording, and easy access to IM and email.

Pantech Impact will be available from AT&T in bright blue and soft pink, for $99.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement and after a $50 mail-in rebate.

AT&T has just announced the USBConnect Lightning from Sierra Wireless, a USB stick that allows for 7.2Mbps downlink capability.

I suppose that this device is just in time for AT&T’s 7.2Mbps upgrade, and it will be available on November 22nd for free after rebate on contract for service launches in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and LA by the end of the year.

Another week, another truckload of Samsung devices dumped onto the shelves. This week’s Samsung shipment brings two new TouchWiz-based touchscreen handsets: the Mythic, and the Flight.

Before we dive into the specs, we gotta give Samsung some grief for the names. Not because they’re bad – in fact, I really, really like both of these names. So much that I wonder why the hell Samsung is giving them to two random TouchWiz handsets. I mean, come on: LG has to resort to calling one of their best selling phones “Cookie“, and you throw away Mythic? For shame!

Anyway, on to the handsets:

Samsung Mythic:

* TouchWiz core (in other words, it’s not TouchWiz on top of WinMo/Android. It’s just TouchWiz)

* 3.3″ touchscreen

* 3.2 megapixel camera

* SMS/MMS

* AT&T Nav (subscription required)

* 4.49″ x 2.06″ x .5″

* A2DP Stereo Bluetooth

* Dimensions: 4.49″ x 2.06″ x .5″

* Weight: 3.8 oz

Samsung Flight

* 2.0 Megapixel Camera

* A2DP Stereo Bluetooth

* Dimensions: 4.17″ x 2.2″ x 0.5″

* Weight: 4.8 oz

Both handsets seem quite overpriced compared to the competition, launching at $199 and $99 respectively. Both will be available beginning Nov. 8th.

Those looking for a slightly more QWERTY-equipped WinMo 6.5 device for AT&T than the HTC Pure need look no further than its stablemate, the Tilt2, now that it’s officially available to all comers. The carrier’s second model to use Microsoft’s latest and greatest cut of Windows Mobile stays pretty true to its Touch Pro2 roots, offering an industrial-strength full duplex speakerphone, 3.2 megapixel cam, WVGA tilt-up display, and of course, that five-row QWERTY keyboard that makes banging out long emails and extended MMS tirades just a little more tolerable. Interest parties should come bearing gifts and plenty of cash, because it’ll run $349.99 on contract before a $50 mail-in rebate.

AT&T has announced the Dell Vostro 1520, a new laptop offering embedded 3G data connectivity marketed to small businesses.

Users should appreciate the extended 8-hour battery life that the Vostro promises. The computer includes a fingerprint reader and encrypted hard drives to make sure that its data is safe. The Vostro 1520 also comes with an embedded video camera and pre-installed software to host video chat conferences.

The laptop is powered by a 2.66GHz Intel core 2 Duo CPU, up to 8GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9300M graphics chip, and more. It is customizable through Dell, as are several other Dell laptops that include 3G data connectivity provided by AT&T.

The Vostro follows several other AT&T netbook offerings, like the mobile computers it announced in July: the Acer Aspire One, the Dell Inspiron Mini 10, and the Lenovo S10, as we reported.

The Dell Vostro 1520 is available now through AT&T’s small business channels and can be purchased for $633 with a two-year customer agreement with AT&T’s DataConnect 5GB service plan.