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With the actual release date hovering around this weekend/next few days, it's nice to know that if you call Sprint Telesales (877-639-8351) you can place your order today for the device.

The product ID, if they have trouble is: PTR800HK.

All the info we have posted in the last few days still stands: price is $599.99 with $75 or $150 off for 1 or 2 year upgrades, plus a $100 mail in rebate.

Some of those on SERO are being asked for a verification email from a Sprint employee, but these seem to be the exception right now. SERO customers do not have to switch plans to get the phone.

The good news? My order is expected to be here tomorrow, so stay tuned for that arrival and un-boxing if true.

No word on the exact date on in-store purchases, but it'll probably be sooner than later.

Want to track your Sprint order? Click here.

Thanks to boilermaker via our forums!

Chalk up another contestant for Malatesta's Black Slab beauty contest, though this is probably as close as you'll get to it.

Introducing the MWg Zinc II (that'd be for Singapore's Mobile & Wireless Group), making its  U.S. debut after spending some time across the pond in Europe.

The specs aren't shabby.

• UMTS Tri-band, GSM Quad-band
• HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
• Samsung 500 Mhz
• 2.8” TFT QVGA (Touch Screen)
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Semi-automatic sliding mechanism with qwerty keypad
• WLAN (802.11 b/g) and BT v 2.0
• 2MP Camera (rear-facing)
• GPS : SirF Star III
• Dimension: 109.5 x 59 x 18 mm

But the price is hefty: Upwards of $700 from your favorite online retailer, as no U.S. carrier is offering (read: subsidizing) this one. However, MWg appears to be hoping to change that.

“MWg has established a full operation in the US focused on developing MWg as a recognized brand in the region. The Zinc II is the first new device to be released in this market and will be sold unlocked through various channels including retailers, e-tailers, corporate resellers and systems integrators.”

One neat feature that we've mentioned recently in our Podcast was Palm's unique "Maps" program and Today Plugin, which is nicely tied into the phone's aGPS system.

Palm has always done a nice job in marrying the hardware to the software and instead of just slapping some GPS on the phone, they actually made it...well, useful and easy.

Here are a couple of interesting things gleaned from past scoops and the recently released user manual...

Read on for more details on the 800w's GPS capabilities...

Features:

• Look up a contact's location directly from your Today screen (p240)
• Find people, restaurants, movies, etc. using the GPS Today plugin (p182)
• Map your current, recent, and street locations

It also appears that at least for some of these functions, it uses the much superior assisted-GPS system, meaning your current geographical location should happen within seconds, as opposed to the longer "cold start" of traditional GPS systems (read our GPS vs aGPS tutorial here). This should make it faster than the Sprint Touch, Mogul and Q9c which don't use the assistance servers out-of-the-box. Stay tuned for more details.

Basically how it works is while on the today screen, you can just type the name of your contact, hold down the center key and select the "Find" menu entry. The GPS will then map that contact's address directly on the screen.

The other unique feature involves the "Point of Interest" plugin which is sort of like having Microsoft's Live Search built right in to the Today screen. All you do is type in whatever you are looking for and hit "enter" and it will look up and map the info directly, all based on your aGPS coordinates.

That brings us finally to that last aspect. the program "Maps". Not much is currently known about this except it looks like Goolge Maps (but isn't?) and it is not Live Search, though we understand both programs will work with the device's built in GPS. This app appears to be a custom mapping program that is streamlined and tied closely to the OS, for seamless integration.

Either way, these "little features" look to be quite useful and and at this point, unique to the Palm Treo 800w.

We know this sucka is testing at Sprint right now and we've seen some earlier roadmaps that said Q3, so this just confirms what we've already expected.

Basically it looks like Sprint is getting ready to launch the heralded HTC Touch Diamond (aka HTC MP 6950; the Sprint Touch is the 6900) on Tuesday, September 2nd. So start saving your cash now. Check out Dieter's great walk-through vid of what to expect.

This puts it at around the same time as Telus (who evidently are a lot more open about their Diamond love than Sprint or Verizon).

The specs are expected to be similar to what Telus/HTC announced, though who know what Sprint will do:

• 101mm x 51mm x 14mm
• EVDO Rev A
• WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0
• Qualcomm MSM 7510A Processor running at 528MHz
• 256 ROM, 256 RAM, 4 Gigs internal (no expansion)
• Opera 9.5 for the browser
• Camera is still 3.2mp, screen is still 640x480
• The battery gets a big bump: it's 1340 mAh

Oho yeah and there's the 1st "glamor shot" of the Treo 800w, which is launching this week...you know, in case you haven't heard.

Via GTX at Sprintusers (original photo)

If you're still looking for a mobile push e-mail solution and none of our suggestions has worked out, Microsoft itself could be coming to the rescue.

The head of Redmond's business division this morning announced a slew of new hosted services, a direct shot across the bow of Google's free apps, including hosted Exchange access for as little as $3 per user per month.

Full hosted Exchange, Sharepoint access and other goodies will cost $15 a month per user, which is still within reason, and there are referral incentives for business partners as well.

However: It's not quite spelled out whether this is a business-only deal, or if the average consumer will be able to get in on the goodies.

We've long been fans of Viigo's mobile RSS reader, and we were practically salivating when we got our first look at Project Tango on the BlackBerry.

And now, Viigo has released a free beta Project Tango application for Windows Mobile devices.

Included in the current beta is support for:

• News and RSS
• Audio and podcasts(!)
• Weather
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Stocks
• Finance

And coming up we should see airline flight info and local search. Also, if you already use Viigo, your feeds can be imported to Project Tango from your My Viigo account.

The BlackBerry edition of Project Tango teamed up with the WES conference in May, and the WinMo version is dubbed the "Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference edition" in conjunction with this week's shindig in Houston.

Viigo Project Tango for Windows Mobile

Edit: Anyone else having problems getting to the download site on their device, or problems with the desktop installer? Let us know in the comments. From your mobile device, go to www.GetViigo.com/wpc. (The address in the text message I received was bad.)