“The Motorola PRO+ is built for people who want to take the pressure off and consolidate their work and personal lives with an efficient smartphone that acts like your personal assistant,” said Alain Mutricy, Motorola’s senior vice president, portfolio and device product management, in a statement. “Today, with our demanding 24/7 lifestyles your smartphone should make your complex life easier and give you an edge at work and at play.” Pricing and availability have not yet been announced for AT&T or T-Mobile. Motorola’s full press release follows below along with a video.

Motorola Mobility Delivers the Smartphone that Works and Plays as Hard as You Do: Motorola PRO+

A powerful smartphone optimized for business but fun enough to use for your personal life – Motorola PRO+ is your personal assistant and best friend

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Aug. 30, 2011 – Life is full of demands, and we all could use a little extra help. With the sleek and sophisticated Motorola PRO+, brought to you by Motorola Mobility Inc., you can have your own personal assistant that fits right in your pocket. Motorola PRO+ gives you the power to edit important documents on the go, multitask when every second counts, and encrypt sensitive work information so your IT manager can sleep at night. This supreme blend of touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard and Android™ 2.3 (Gingerbread) makes this smartphone ready for anything. The Motorola PRO+ will be available in Asia and Europe starting in October.

Motorola PRO+ has a super quick 1GHz processor and physical QWERTY keyboard for more efficient typing and texting when you need to update a client on the fly, for browsing for really important information, or multitasking as necessity demands. The device is also packed with productivity features to make your life easier and to help you impress your boss or your friends, including the pre-loaded Quickoffice Connect for accessing, creating and editing documents on-the-go. We know that in a fast paced world, going in and out of apps wastes precious time, so now key apps such as your calendar and email are scrollable direct from your home screen.

Motorola PRO+ merges all of your personal and business information for you in a convenient system designed to make your life easier. Take the pressure off knowing Motorola PRO+ syncs services from multiple sources, so all your contacts are viewable the way you want them, calendar options are available to arrange, edit, and respond to meeting invites, there are direct dial conference options, and intuitive email solutions that can anticipate who you may be sending an email to before you do. Its 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities enables you to connect multiple devices, such as a laptop or tablet, for quick access to the Web, corporate email and calendar syncing. Plus, it features scratch resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass so tossing your phone in your bag or pocket doesn’t have to be a disaster.

“The Motorola PRO+ is built for people who want to take the pressure off and consolidate their work and personal lives with an efficient smartphone that acts like your personal assistant,” said Alain Mutricy, senior vice president, portfolio and device product management, Motorola Mobility. “Today, with our demanding 24/7 lifestyles your smartphone should make your complex life easier and give you an edge at work and at play.”

Motorola PRO+ knows how to have fun too – it is ready for full customization to bring you the games and applications most important to you. With Music, Motorola’s unique music player you have a dashboard for music discovery. You have easy access to all your favorite artists and song lyrics. Plus, you receive live, personalized recommendations for songs and videos as well as news and event updates from the world of music. With Gallery, you can aggregate all your photos from social networking and photo sharing sites like Facebook and Picasa for easy viewing. Plus, with Adobe® Flash® Player 10.3, you’ll be able to access the online content you love. Motorola PRO+ is also preloaded with the latest *Google mobile services including Google Maps™ 5.0, Google Talk™ and more than 250,000 apps from Android Market™.

Motorola PRO+ is a smartphone that you and your IT department can agree upon. Nothing says business ready better than the leading security features; whether it’s remote wipe of your device and SD card, password expiration and history, or full encryption, your IT manager will breathe a sigh of relief. Motorola PRO+ comes loaded with 25 Exchange ActiveSync security policies – including PIN lock, auto-discovery of Exchange Servers, Extended Device Management API’s and 3LM integration. Your sensitive information – your career – is guarded in this virtual vault with Motorola PRO+. It’s fully loaded with support for Exchange and Gmail for business, including corporate directory options. With these leading features your IT manager just might give you a smile.

Smart Accessories

A suite of smart accessories ensures users get the most from the Motorola Pro+. Available accessories include a Bluetooth® headset, Bluetooth car kit, portable power, and car charger.

Besides having to pay an unsubsidized price for the phone, you could also be missing out on certain design changes. For example, as we reported, the Samsung Hercules is expected to come to T-Mobile and there is speculation that the phone-with its larger 4.5 inch display-is a variant of the Samsung Galaxy S II for the nation’s fourth largest carrier.

We recently told you that speculation was centering on Verizon becoming the first carrier to offer the Samsung Galaxy S II with a possible August 12th launch date. With that day increasingly becoming more unlikely for the release of this summer’s hottest smartphone, the most likely scenario now is a September launch. And don’t forget, the recently leaked Verizon roadmap mentioned a September launch of the Samsung Stratosphere, a phone with specs that exactly match those of the Galaxy S II.

Spec highlights include a 2.6-inch touchscreen display above a full QWERTY keypad, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, HTC’s Sense UI, an 800MHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera, a secondary front-facing VGA camera for video chat and a 1,250 mAh battery. Pricing and availability have not yet been announced.

Today, HTC launched a new page on Facebook, all about the HTC Status, coming exclusively to AT&T this summer. You know those priceless moments with your friends on Facebook—that quick pic, inside joke, or perfectly timed post? The first device with a Facebook share button, the HTC Status ensures those moments happen more often, keeping you at the center of your social circle. The HTC Status lets you share just about anything with just one touch, including music, photos, location and status updates. HTC Status also features a chat widget that allows you to, at a glance, see when your friends are online. You can start a live instant chat and juggle between as many private conversations as you want, all straight from the device.

“HTC Status brings a Facebook experience to people who want to share their experiences with their friends faster and easier than ever before,” said Jason Mackenzie, President, HTC Americas. “With a dedicated Facebook share button combined with the hallmark HTC Sense experience, HTC Status makes it easy for people to stay connected to the things that are important to them.”

Dedicated Facebook share button

One touch to share- Press the Facebook share button from your home screen to instantly post on your wall.
Snap, shoot, share- Take a picture or shoot a video and share it instantly with a press of the Facebook share button. You can even post pictures automatically as you’re taking them..
Quick-on-the-draw check-in- Just long press the Facebook share button to check in your location with Facebook Places.
Be first with the news- See something cool on the web? Share your latest find with a quick press of the Facebook share button.
Post to your wall – or a friend’s wall – From the home screen, a quick tap of the Facebook HTC share button makes sharing anything on your mind quick and easy.
Share what you’re listening to- The Facebook share button glows when you’re listening to music, to let you know you can share. Let your friends in on the music you love with the push of a button.

Lock screen shortcuts

Instead of a barrier, the HTC shortcut lock screen just became a launch pad to what you want to do now! Open your favorite apps by just dragging their shortcut icons into the lock screen ring.

See what’s happening before you pick up

Every time you get or make a call, you see your friend’s profile picture and latest status update right on the call screen. If it’s their birthday that week, you’ll see that, too.

Special effects for photos and videos

Anyone can be an artist. Use camera effects to make your photos and videos look like they’ve been taken through special lenses and filters—like Sepia for an old-fashioned look, or Aqua for a touch of cool. Apply effects right in the viewfinder, or apply them afterwards in the Gallery.

Front and back cameras

Take a spontaneous self-portrait or a quick cheek-to-cheek pic with your best pal on the VGA front-facing camera—or just double-check your hair with the Mirror app. With the 5.0 MP main camera with LED flash, you can capture every moment, with pictures or high-quality video.

A smarter ringer

The “Quiet ring on pickup” setting reduces the ring volume when you pick the phone up. The “Pocket mode” setting increases ring volume when your phone is in a pocket or bag, and then returns the volume to a reasonable level when you take it out.

Tech Specs

Platform: Android™ 2.3 + HTC Sense
Display: 2.6-inch touch screen with 480 x 320 resolution
Network: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900
Memory: 512 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
Processor: MSM7227, 800 MHz
Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery, 1250 mAh
Camera resolution: 5 MP main camera with autofocus, VGA  front-facing camera

Please check out the HTC Status Facebook page and the AT&T Facebook page for more information on the device as we get closer to retail availability.

Samsung’s svelte superphone with the dazzling 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display is launching May 15th on AT&T for $200 on a two-year contract. Keep it locked right here, as more pics and a hands-on with Sammy’s hot new handset are on the way.

Behind that sizable screen real estate, the Infuse 4G packs HSDPA Cat 14 and HSUPA Cat 6 radios, a 2GB microSD card, 1.2 GHz processor, and Android 2.2. Sammy also gave it an 8-megapixel camera in the back that does 720p video and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter – all in a handset that’s 9.24mm thick in the bulge at the bottom and 8.9mm thin most everywhere else.

The Veer (now Veer 4G for AT&T) was originally announced back in February and is a new design for webOS devices. It has a very small form-factor, taking up the approximate area of a credit card. It offers a sliding portrait keyboard below a 2.57-inch, 400 x 320 pixel touchscreen. Eight gigabytes of storage is built-in, though, like other webOS phones, it does not have a microSD slot for expansion.

Despite its diminutive size, HP promises that the Veer provides a full smartphone experience. An 800MHz processor powers the device and it has the latest version of the webOS operating system.

Customers will be able to purchase the Veer 4G in white or black from AT&T on May 15. It will cost $99.99 after rebate with a new two-year agreement.

Based on the Optimus 3D that we got hands-on with at MWC, the LG Thrill 4G has a 4.3-inch screen with that unique 3D capability. Video and stills can be shot in 3D with the 5 megapixel stereoscopic camera. Content will be provided in 3D via the LG 3D Space, including 3D games, video clips, and images.

The Thrill 4G is powered by a dual-core 1 GHz processor with dual-channel memory and runs Android 2.2 Froyo. There is 8 GB of storage built-in, and the phone is capable of recording 3D content in 720p resolution (1280×720 pixels) or 2D content at 1080p (1920×1080 pixels). The Thrill 4G also includes an HDMI-out port to stream content to an HDTV, and features DLNA support for wireless streaming to supported devices.

Pricing and availability for the LG Thrill 4G have yet to be announced.

The handset sits somewhere in between the two existing HSPA+ handsets for AT&T in that it has better specs than the Inspire, but lacks a bit of the fluff found in the Atrix. Still, the Infuse is no chump, and will appeal to many when it officially lands. Sporting a massive 4.5 inch Super AMOLED Plus display, 1.2 GHz Hummingbird processor, 8 megapixel camera, and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, the Infuse can hold its own against the Atrix, even if it Motorola’s handset sports a dual-core CPU and plenty of expensive accessories. Plus, we’ll avoid Motoblur when we can, so the Infuse is a bit more appealing from a software perspective.

Shipping with Android 2.2, the Infuse will most definitely be receiving the Gingerbread. And it will likely receive the Ice Cream Sandwich update whenever it makes its debut, but timing seems to be a gray area when it comes to Samsung and Android updates. That said, we’re sure AT&T will try to make the waiting period much shorter than last year, as they have embraced the OS like never before this year, especially after the previous fumbles.

In terms of specifications, the Infuse may sit between the Inspire and Atrix, but it likely won’t when it comes to pricing. The handset is rather high-end, so we can expect to see the Infuse land at the $200 price point we’ve come to expect from new, advanced smartphones. Hell, the large ultra-crisp display may be enough to justify the price point for some of you out there.

Here’s to hoping we’ll see the Infuse 4G  come out sometime soon, hopefully without the upload data cap we’ve been seeing on AT&T’s HSPA+ devices.

Judging by the image the FCC has posted, it looks like it’ll be an edge-to-edge touchscreen device. Moreover, it’ll have support for both WCDMA (interestingly, the AT&T 3G band – 850/1900Mhz) and CDMA/EvDo (probably Verizon) networks.

The FCC papers confirm that the Samsung Galaxy S II has the AT&T 3G bands – 850/1900MHz. It’s yet to hit the market worldwide, though some European retailers have it on pre-order already.

Here’s hoping this time around the update process will be smoother. As you might remember a week ago we saw the update published but AT&T pulled it out as it caused some issues. Samsung is definitely on a bad update streak. Omnia 7, anyone?

This really reflects bad on customers that expect timely updates of their phones. No one likes to wait around, while everyone else enjoys the new goodies for months.

AT&T has posted the information for the upcoming update, along with instructions, on their official Facebook page. So be sure to check it out if you’re one of the “lucky” ones to own the Captivate on the AT&T network.

The cheapest Motorola Atrix 4G offer comes from Walmart – $129.99 with a new contract (starting from $59.99 per month). Next up is a tie between Amazon and RadioShack both of which offer the phone at $149.99. Finally, you can get it straight from AT&T for $199.99 with a 2 year plan starting from $39.99/month plus a mandatory $15/month (or more) data plan.

Before you do the math and see which plan suits you best, you should consider getting the laptop dock (or “Lapdock”) bundled with the Atrix 4G for $499.99 from AT&T. You’ll have to get it on a 2-year contract for a $45/month data plan. In case you don’t want to get the pricy data plan the Lapdock alone costs $499.99 and you’ll have to get the phone separately.

RadioShack have the Motorola Atrix 4G with Lapdock bundle for a little less – $479.99. Keep in mind that mail-in rebates apply to some of these prices.