Product placement 101: The keynote: Hesse brandishes Samsung touchscreen device

If you can get Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint Nextel Corp., to extoll the virtues of your jointly developed handset during the opening day’s keynote address, you’re well-positioned to make hay.
Thus the new Samsung Instinct – which looked similar to the iPhone – gave the vendor a boost, just as Samsung is ramping up efforts to grab more market share in the United States and Sprint, not incidentally, is working to hang on to its share.
The Instinct bests the iPhone in several ways, Hesse said. For one, it runs on Sprint’s CDMA1x 2000 EV-DO network, offers GPS and over-the-air downloads. Look for it in June, price TBA.
Sprint announced the diminutive BlackBerry Curve 8330, a QWERTY for the EV-DO network, also with built-in GPS and a bevy of features.
Also up at Sprint: Nokia Corp.’s N810 Internet Tablet, WiMAX Edition, the first WiMAX device to hit the market in the U.S. with a planned rollout in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore and Chicago markets, currently running trials of Sprint’s Xohm-branded WiMAX network. The device will sell at about $480, which analyst Avi Greengart at Current Analysis said might be a constraint on uptake. Look for it at Sprint and Nokia’s alternative channels.
AT&T Wireless will exclusively deliver the latest handset from Motorola Inc., the Z9 slider feature phone offering HSDPA speeds, AT&T Navigator, Video Share and other features.
At Verizon Wireless, Motorola is delivering its all-business Q9C with Windows Mobile 6, integrated GPS and VZ Navigator. Another version of the Q9 will go to Alltel Corp. and U.S. Cellular in dapper dark gray and the Q9 Lime in “vibrant green.”
HTC Corp. said it would deliver the Touch Dual in this quarter, a touchscreen device with slideout keypad, Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional quad-band with HSDPA. It’ll be available through Best Buy; no word on price.
Then there were vendors looking to grab a little attention at the show. Velocity Mobile, a new outfit partnering with Inventec, an Asian ODM, is bringing its new Velocity 103 and Velocity 111 to market. Both sport Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. The 103 is due this quarter and offers a touchscreen, quad-band GSM/EDGE/UMTS with HSDPA speeds, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a 2-megapixel camera. The 111 is a QWERTY device many similar features and is due in the third quarter. No pricing or distribution was available yet.
And a little something for Grannie – the ClarityLife phone featuring amplified voice, large button keypad and a one-touch emergency button that generates text messages to five pre-selected parties. (“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”) It’s due in summer, but no distribution or pricing was available.