The New York Times refers to a Nielsen study that found the average U.S. teenager sent & received more than 2,200 SMS messages per month in Q4 2008—or as the Times notes, about 80 messages a day, double what it was the previus year.

Physicians and psychologists tick off a list of possible physical and mental symptoms from the constant barrage of text messages. To name a few: sleep deprivation as teens fire off SMS replies late at night, “terrific anxiety” over the fear of “being out the loop,” and even repetitive-stress injuries (RSI) as thumbs fly across the keypads.

Of course most of the concerns listed in the Times story are anecdotal; there aren’t any clinical studies as yet that show a definite link between heavy texting and mental and/or physical harm in teens.

Time will tell if so much texting has adverse health effects, and we await the verdict with baited breath.

Customers in where the mobile operators have teamed up with Nokia can make use of automatic operator billing, which is downloadable from the Download! folder on the phone. Credit card billing is also available both through the mobile application and the mobile website.

The US will be getting Ovi Store as well later this year thanks to AT&T. Content providers & application developers are still able to sign up to distribute their products through Ovi Store by visiting publish.ovi.com, and developers will be able to get up to 70% of the revenue from their software.

The specs include HSDPA, Bluetooth, 3MP camera and a 240×320 screen. Hopefully this is incorrect, as all the other Android phones have 480×320 (HVGA) screens.  The QVGA resolution needs to die a fast death, and soon.

The HTC Lancaster is also supposed to have a “unique HTC social-messaging user interface,” which could possibly be in reference to the Android modifications the HTC Hero firmware videos has shown off.

The leak fixes an August launch for the US which tells us the announcement may not be too far in the distant future. Hopefully more details will surface on this phone in due course.

China Mobile will release the phones with custom software and called OPhones, which refers to Open Mobile System, which China Mobile has named its own version of Google’s Android operating system, so rest assured the OPhone is not a nameplay on the Apple iPhone.

China Mobile has almost half a billion customers and could well have exclusivity and thus be the only provider offering the phone. HTC sold 800,000 handsets in China last year and are looking at doubling that figure this year.

The release price for the OPhone handset will end up at about $730 (about 5,000 yuan).

The PC maker leapt into the smartphone market this year with its Tempo devices and they are looking to capture up to 5% of the burgeoning smartphone market within five years by offering handsets that are free with contract or priced very competitively.

Most of of Acer’s smartphones will run Windows Mobile, but one or more will use Linux-based Android, according to the head of the mobile phone unit. The open source Android OS was introduced by Google and the Open Handset Alliance in 2007 with the goal of bringing the openness of the Internet to the mobile arena. IT was designed for a plethore of mobile devices, and seeing as it doesnt suffer from royalty fees it made it a direct challenge to the likes of Symbian and Windows Mobile.

For Google, this is an attempt to get more mobile users to use its Web services, as well as move its AdWords business to the mobile arena. Naturally the more the mobile usage grows, the more Google will grow along with it. Google CEO Eric Schmidt says he expects the mobile Web to eventually generate more revenue for the company, perhaps even more than the standard Web.

Analysts write that Apple has said it’s not interested in a netbook as it wouldn’t distinguish it enough from the competition as well as eat away at MacBook sales, so they expect Apple to leverage its multi-touch patents and produce a touch-screen tablet device.

“We expect Apple to fill the gap between the iPod Touch and the MacBook with a new tablet device (not a netbook) priced at about $500-$700,” lead analyst Gene Munster wrote in the report.

“We are anticipating a new category of Apple products with an operating system more robust than the iPhone’s but optimised for multitouch, unlike Mac OS X. The device’s OS could bear a close resemblance to Apple’s mobile OS and run App Store apps, or it could be a modified version of Mac OS X.”

The report also puts emphasis on that Apple believes software is the key to success in the mobile device arena, as proved by the App Store being at the heart of its mobile OS.

“With a larger tablet device in Apple’s lineup, the company could begin selling digital books on its iTunes Store, for use on the tablet as an eBook reader,” according to the report. “In this way, Apple could respond to the tangential competition from Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle DX.”

The report also says that Apple launched its first iPod three years after the first portable MP3 player arrived, and the iPhone hit the market five years after the first BlackBerry with e-mail and phone capabilities, so Munster writes “We believe Apple is observing the netbook market in a similar way, and will eventually enter with a tablet, a premium mobile computing device.”

Apple is naturally familiar with subsidy pricing through its iPhone arrangement with AT&T and recent talks with Verizon.

The report also states Apple could “include an integrated mobile data feature such as 3Gwireless into the device and partner with AT&T or Verizon to subsidize the device together with a contract for a wireless data plan.”

The telecoms company has had success by offering discounted cell phones with two-year contracts, and it is betting on it that businesses plan forward with netbooks. They offer $50 Acer Aspire One computers in trial markets for users who signed a contract for home DSL and 3G data connections.

AT&T stated the trial markets were very successful, and that they will be rolling out subsidized Dell, Acer, and Lenovo netbooks across the country starting this summer. Price details and netbook models will be announced later they say, but customers will probably have to pay for monthly 3G wireless service. Subscription fees start at around $60 a month.

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Nokia has launched, about a year ago, the 6600 slide.

The difference between the 6600 slide and 6600i slide is that the new phone features a 5MP camera with dual LED flash (the old phone only has a 3.2MP one).

Nokia presents the 6600i slide as its “smallest 5 megapixel slider to date”, and the phone is also relatively affordable – €200 ($271).

Other than the improved camera, Nokia 6600i slide is basically the same old 6600 slide, with a slightly different design.

Nokia 6600i slide will be available in select markets starting the third quarter of 2009. It will be shipped with a 1GB card and a Nokia stereo headset WH-203 with FM radio in the box.

By the way, this camera upgrade to the “i” version lends credence to the rumor about the upcoming 5 megapixel  Nokia E71i that we’ve reported about just recently.

Andre Jacquet, head of global marketing business management, said that the message conveyed by the brand names was no longer relevant. He added that as more consumers sought phones featuring a digital camera, music and internet services, sticking with the Walkman and Cyber-shot names was ‘wrong’.

Sony Ericsson now plans to rebrand under ‘Entertainment Unlimited’, which it said would unite the Walkman and Cyber-shot brands under a single name. The first music-focused mobile handsets were launched in 2005 and since then more than 100m Walkman-branded phones have been sold.

Next week Sony Ericsson’s first touch-screen 12-megapixel camera phone with video, games, Google Maps and music services will be launched, dubbed the Idou, and is aimed at going head-to-head with the Apple iPhone.

The Nokia 2720 Fold is a thin flip-phone in black or deep red, and the front face of the phone acts as a mirror. Features include Bluetooth, a personal organizer, messaging and e-mail, a 1.3MP camera, music player, FM radio, voice recorder, wireless Web browser, and also speakerphone, and runs on the 850/1900 and GSM 900/1800 bands.

Moving up the scale a bit is the quad-band Nokia 2730 Classic, which supports four WCDMA (3G) bands, which makes it usable anywhere around the world. Where features are concerned it has a speakerphone, messaging and e-mail, wireless Web browser, music player, 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, PC syncing, GPS with Nokia Maps, and a personal organizer, along with a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm headset jack on the candy bar model.

The Nokia 7020, also a flip-phone, comes in hot pink and graphite, and features include a 2-megapixel camera, speakerphone, music player, voice commands, GPS with Nokia Maps, Bluetooth, a personal organizer, messaging and e-mail, and a wireless Web browser, and it has quad-band with support for EDGE networks.