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Who doesn’t love Chocolate? Why not head over to Verizon and purchase the long awaited LG VX8500, Chocolate phone. This is one part MP3 player, one part phone, and 100% sweetness. The models final specs include the black lacquer finish (see our hands-on Peep Show here), 1.3 megapixel camera, 210 min talk time, 38 hours standby, 3.53 oz, Bluetooth stereo capable, V-Cast, music player with support for MP3 and WMA files, VZ Navigator capable, touch sensitive navigation keys, voice recognition, EVDO Broadband Access connect (use the handset as a modem for your laptop), a microSD or TransFlash memory card slot, and a video camera with up to a 1 hour recording.

The phone will see with a new 2 ear contract for $149.99 (and $100 more for a 1 year contract). You can also pay $199.99 and get the music bundle kit (necessary to copy your own tunes to the phone), a leather case, and car charger or for $249.99 you get everything listed plus a 2 GB microSD card--a great deal!

So don’t wait, go indulge yourself in chocolate.

Besides our Peep Show, read on to see a pic of the RAZR and Chocolate phone compared.

RIM announced that the Blackberry will beef up on features in the coming months--presumably to combat the strong competition from the Treo 700w, 700p, Motorola Q, and other recent smartphones. By the end of this year we should see the addition of Wi-Fi, a still camera, a video camera, memory expansion slots, GPS, and MP3 playback.

In addition RIM will expand its BlackBerry Connect service in the United States, with the service coming to Palm devices in July. BlackBerry Connect allows non-BlackBerry devices to use the BlackBerry network. “Twenty non-BlackBerry devices can use the BlackBerry service now,” Balsillie said, adding that 20 more would be able to use it this year including CDMA devices (currently only GSM devices support the software). Balsillie said that one area that was starting to grow quickly was the market for BlackBerry peripherals. He said these included printers, bar-code scanners, RFID (radio-frequency identification) scanners, and digital pen and paper.

Balsillie refused to answer questions about rumors that RIM was in discussions to buy Palm, saying only that his company sees itself as “one in a plurality of wireless device providers.” He also declined to say which BlackBerry he thought was the coolest; he said they were different to meet the needs of different users.

Read [eWeek]
Via [Business Logs]

Major Nelson, big boss man, over at Microsoft’s Xbox division announced in a podcast that the Xbox Live Vision camera will be coming out on September 19th of this year, but we already knew this. If you remember back from E3, the Xbox Live Vision video camera will allow gamers with Xbox Live Gold to customize their gamer picture, send photo messages, and video chat with friends and family over Xbox Live. The Major did not reveal, however, what pricing will look like for the cam.

Read [Engadget]