Apparently the original post which cited Microsoft’s mandate of no replaceable batteries in Windows Phone 7 Series handsets was an April Fool’s joke. Ha… ha? Sincere apologies to Microsoft and to all of you for having fallen for it.

The leaked Nokia N8-00 hardware we spied just days ago got a bit more official today thanks to some intrepid XML file sniffing over at Nokia.com. More

Vodafone has today announced that it will be the exclusive UK carrier of that aluminum-clad successor to the Hero : the HTC Legend . Advance registration pages for it and its family mate, the Desire, have gone live today and indicate an April launch date — something we’d already expected thanks to Amazon’s delivery estimates for unlocked handsets. The two HTC devices are flanked by Sony Ericsson’s long awaited X10 and the Nexus One , with the latter lacking a release date. It’s interesting that as things stand the Desire (HTC’s own-branded Nexus One) will beat its precursor to the UK market.

We’ve seen leaks of the HTC Legend and Desire (formerly known as Bravo) previously, but what look like the official pics and specs for those and the Touch HD Mini have appeared a day ahead of HTC’s MWC press conference. The Desire, pictured above, will reportedly pack a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen and will run Android 2.1 with HTC Sense. The Legend looks to have a 3.1″ HVGA screen, a 5 megapixel camera, and a 600 MHz CPU, while the HD Mini is a WinMo 6.5 handset with a 3.2″ HVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera, and HTC TouchFlo 3D. Full specs, from the Android forum at MoDaCo : HTC Desire (Bravo) * CPU Speed - 1 GHz * Platform - Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC SenseTM * Memory - ROM: 512 MB, RAM: 576 MB * Dimensions - (LxWxT) 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm (4.7 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches) * Weight - 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery * Display - 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution * Network - HSPA/WCDMA: o Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz o Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps * Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: o 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.) * Onscreen navigation - Optical Trackball * GPS - Internal GPS antenna * Sensors - o Proximity sensor o Ambient light sensor o G-Sensor o Digital compass * Connectivity - Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit * Wi-Fi® - IEEE 802.11 b/g * 3.5 mm stereo audio jack * Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0) * Camera - 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flashlight * Audio supported formats o Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma, o Recording: .amr * Video supported formats o Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv o · Recording: .3gp * Battery - Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery * Capacity - 1400 mAh * Talk time: o Up to 390 minutes for WCDMA o Up to 400 minutes for GSM * Standby time: o Up to 360 hours for WCDMA o Up to 340 hours for GSM * Expansion Slot - microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible) * AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency - 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz * DC output - 5 V and 1 A * Special Feature - Friend Stream HTC Legend * CPU speed - 600 MHz * Platform - Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense * Memory ROM - 512 MB, RAM: 384 MB * Dimensions - (LxWxT) 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm (4.41 x 2.22 x 0.45 inches) * Weight - 126 grams (4.44 ounces) with battery * Display - 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 320 X 480 HVGA resolution * Network - HSPA/WCDMA: o Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz o Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps * Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: o 850/900/1800/1900 MHz * Onscreen navigation - Optical trackball * GPS - Internal GPS antenna * Sensors - o G-Sensor o Digital compass o Proximity sensor o Ambient light sensor * Connectivity - Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit * Wi-Fi® - IEEE 802.11 b/g * 3.5 mm stereo audio jack * Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0) * Camera - 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash * Audio supported formats - o Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma o Recording: .amr * Video supported formats - o Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv o Recording: .3gp * Battery - Rechargeable Lithium-ion polymer or Lithium-ion battery * Capacity - 1300 mAh * Talk time - o Up to 440 minutes for WCDMA o Up to 490 minutes for GSM * Standby time - o Up to 560 hours for WCDMA o Up to 440 hours for GSM * Expansion slot - microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible) * AC adapter - Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz * DC output - 5V and 1A * Special feature - Friend Stream HTC Touch HD Mini (Full specs unavailable).

The WSJ has confirmed that Mic will introduce their newest mobile phone OS on Monday at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona. WinMo 6.5 is dead; long live Windows Phone 7 . The announcement will almost certainly come during Steve Ballmer’s Windows Phone press conference , scheduled for 3pm local time. According to the WSJ, Windows Phone 7 will have an entirely new user interface that closely resembles that of Zune.

Google’s Nexus One has been interpreted by some press as a title inspired by the Nexus series of androids in the Blade Runner movie. Creator Philip K. Dick’s daughter, Isa, says, “We were never consulted, no requests were made, and we didn’t grant any sort of permissions.” She is consulting her legal counsel over the matter. [ NYT ]

Google’s Nexus One has been interpreted by some press as a title inspired by the Nexus series of androids in the Blade Runner movie. Creator Philip K. Dick’s daughter, Isa, says, “We were never consulted, no requests were made, and we didn’t grant any sort of permissions.” She is consulting her legal counsel over the matter. [ NYT ]

The boys at BGR got a hold of a mysterious Motorola phone called the Opus One this morning. Details are sparse, but the source (described as “new”) says the phone is the company’s first Android iDEN handset. Images are about all that’s offered up here. No specs, no dates, no explanation. Just pics and some well-groomed fingernails: We’ll keep an eye out for more

Look’s like the Wireless Power Consortium can add another one of the big boys onto its list of powerful allies. Research in Motion’s come on board as a member of the organization, which now includes 21 manufacturers. The Wireless Power Consortium’s noble quest, you’ll remember, is to develop a wireless charging standard, which it calls the Qi . The group also announced simultaneously that it’s successfully finished the second round of prototype testing. RIM’s support is adds further hope to the pursuit of said standard, after Nokia joined the cause in October.

Mike Arrington’s following up yesterday’s rumor of the Google Phone with an interesting angle: That it may be VOIP and data only, having no traditional voice plan. Sounds like the telcos worst nightmare. But Mike notes that AT&T is already ok with setting up Windows and Blackberry phones with data only plans (but not iPhones) and that a data/voip-only phone is what Google proposed to the FCC when bidding on wireless spectrum back in the day. The initial post that there would be a Google phone—an in-house, top-to-bottom Google developed handset running android—was met with skepticism by the press. Most people quoted previous statements from Google’s Andy Rubin stating that they would not “compete with their own customers” by releasing a handset of their own.