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We had a few moments to play with the new Palm OS based Smartphones from GSPDA at the CTIA this week. Following are several pictures of each device. They'll be available for purchase soon and will hopefully see official support from T-Mobile or Cingular, though neither deal is certain.

Just to recap, from a technical perspective, the phones are pretty much identical with a few exceptions. Most noticeably, they have different form factors, but there are a few variances as noted below:

• Palm OS Garnet
• Tri-band GSM850/1800/1900MHz, GPRS Class 10
• Bluetooth technology for communicating with headsets, car kits, computers and printers equipped with Bluetooth (Xplore M68 only)
• MP3 and MPEG4 for audio and video capturing and playback
• 1.3 megapixel integrated camera for vibrant photos
• 64 MB RAM/32MB SDRAM Flash Internal Memory Card
• 2.2-inch D-TFD 65K colors LCD screen
• SMS/MMS/WAP/e-mail/Java support
• 1GB of memory capacity with Secure Digital (SD)/Multimedia Card (MMC) for expansion (Xplore M28 and M68)
• Transflash card for expansion (Xplore M98)
• One-handed navigation five-way jog dial 

GSPDA Xplore M28
We saw the M28 in two different colors, so don't let he pictures fool you, it's the same device. The slider mechanism is solid and provides for a smaller footprint. The large d-pad is easy to use and the other buttons are firm, yet responsive. It also has an SD slot, but the big disappointment is the lack of Bluetooth.

The silver and dark grey, almost black models next to each other

The M28 next to my Sony Ericsson K700i

The M28 next to the Audiovox SMT5600

M28 slider extended

M28 back

Up close on the keypad

GSPDA Xplore M68
By far the unit I'm most excited about, the M68 is the only one of the three to feature Bluetooth. The candy bar design is relatively compact and it comes in both black and white. The joystick is easy to use and the blue backlight on the keys is actually pretty cool. It's not pictured but the backlight is the same on the black model as the white.

M68 Front

M68 back

M68 left

M68 right

M68 next to the Audiovox SMT5600

Up close on the M68 face

Both units side by side

GSPDA Xplore M98
The M98 is the one flip format in the group. Consistent with the others, it's compact and finally brings to the table a product that we expected Motorola to produce over a year ago. The lack of Bluetooth is going to hurt and the TransFlash memory slot will have some scratching their heads. TransFlash is a tiny memory card with capacity up to 512MB. It's located under the battery, common in mobile phones. Overall though it's a nice phone with dual LCDs and a weight that makes it the lightest of the bunch.

M98 open

Up close on the keypad

M98 flipped open, on its right side

Front LCD

M98 next to the Audiovox SMT5600