We've seen a few shots of the Samsung i770, but none as good as the above, posted at HoFo [via BGR]. The i770 looks to replace the awkward i760 by ditching the slider and going to a front-facing QWERTY. Palm had better try to get the Treo 800w released on Verizon on October 12th as previously rumored, because there's a lot of pent-up demand for a front-facing QWERTY WinMo smartphone on Verizon. This i770 looks to match the Treo 800w on pretty much every feature and will better it on thinness. One other way it will better the Treo 800w: it's a world-phone -- you can slap a SIM in there for use overseas.

Samsung is also doggedly pursuing their strategy of using the mini-mouse-pad in place of a standard D-Pad, though we hold out hope that the big silver circle surrounding it is clickable. We're doubting it, though, as it sounds like there's a switch to toggle the different pad modes between “swipe to scroll” and “mouse.”

Day One-Half, technically, where we go to a press-only event that preceded CTIA proper. What happened at this pre-show show? Lots of fun ogling some of the latest and greatest coming out soon. Read on for impressions of the HTC Vox, the Samsung i760, and the Motorola Q9.

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Here's another leak from Engadget, another CDMA phone for Verizon, this time from Samsung. That little directional pad down in the lower-left looks interesting, seems like a good solution for reducing the overall height of the device. Add the sliding QWERTY keyboard (and the next-gen WM OS) and it looks like a winner. Samsung

[...] * taking on a decidedly different appearance from its GSM cousin by pushing the keypad to the right and the directional pad to the left. It looks like Verizon is all lined up to get this bad boy come Q2 of next year, packing a little next-gen Windows Mobile action in the process*

Read: Verizon's Samsung i760 out-BlackJacks the BlackJack? - Engadget Mobile