It pretty much goes without saying that a lot of us are (or already have) plan on dropping several hundred dollars later this summer and fall on the latest Windows phone, be it from Samsung, HTC, whomever.

But before you shell out your hard-earned cash and wait patiently for the release of Windows Mobile 6.5, a word of warning. Big things are afoot with Windows Mobile 7, and the two may not play nicely together.

More on that, after the break.

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Time to play "Real or Not Real." What we have here purportedly is a leaked render of the HTC Firestone. A refresher on the specs we heard earlier:

• Phone: GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS900, UMTS2100. (That's missing the U.S. 3G band, natch.)
• Windows Mobile 6.5.
• 3.6-inch WVGA touchscreen.
• Qualcomm 8250 processor at 600MHz.
• 512MB ROM/256MB RAM.
• Micro SD.
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.
• WiFi b/g.
• aGPS.
• G Sensor.
• 3.5mm headphone jack.
• 8MP camera

Of course, all this is far, far from being official. And then there's the latest rumor that the Firestone and the Leo are one in the same, so throw that into the mix as well. Either way, we're not too sure about the offset call/end buttons. And, well, then there's the giant front-facing speaker. We're going to reserve further judgment until things firm up a bit, but you folks feel free to let it all loose in the comments.

Via wmpoweruser

It's been a good couple of weeks since we've seen an HTC phone leak out, so we suppose we're due. Here's what is rumored to be the HTC Firestone, and it appears to hold up pretty well to the early renders we saw in that massive leak earlier this year.

If this indeed is on the level and isn't a clever Photoshop job — it looks pretty good and the shading is what we've come to know from HTC — then it could be a successor to the Touch HD. The latest rumored specs also match the info in the previous leak:

• Phone: GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS900, UMTS2100. (That's missing the U.S. 3G band, natch.)
• Windows Mobile 6.5.
• 3.6-inch WVGA touchscreen.
• Qualcomm 8250 processor at 600MHz.
• 512MB ROM/256MB RAM.
• Micro SD.
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.
• WiFi b/g.
• aGPS.
• G Sensor.
• 3.5mm headphone jack.
• 8MP camera

As for the earlier rumors of a possible U.S. release? Your guess is as good as ours. But what are the odds of something like this and the Touch Diamond 2 co-existing in the same market? (That said, HTC, feel free to offer us an unlocked version here!)

Hitech-sanook via wmpoweruser

Well this is going to take the wind out of HTC's sails a bit for whatever they were going to unveil at Mobile World Congress in a couple months.  See, images marked "DIYPDA.com" (re-posted by user Arlen of PPCGeeks and via Modaco and wmpoweruser) have cropped up -- a full twenty five photos of upcoming HTC devices. We have the full gamut here, from the HTC Iolite (previously seen) to stuff we've been waiting for for quite awhile, like the above HTC Mable, which looks to be the long-awaited 3G update to the Excalibur/T-Mobile Dash.  

We have the Twin, Topaz, Rhodium, quite a lot.  There's everything from WinMo Standard Messaging devices to black slabs to sliders, and they all look good.  Darn near every carrier is represented too.

More after the break

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