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Turns out when Microsoft pre-announced Windows Mobile 6 last week, it disclosed most of the major updates and enhancements to the PDA and smartphone platform. Today, at 3GSM, we've learned some details about what devices will get upgrades and what new products will ship with the wireless operating system (OS) out of the gate.

But first, the most important information Microsoft didn't tell us last week was that Windows Mobile 6 supports higher-resolution displays, including WVGA (800 x 480) and square 320 x 320 screens. So now Palm will be able to develop Windows Mobile Treos, which top out at 240 x 240 today, with the same resolution touch screens as its Palm OS models.

The first smartphone sure to receive a upgrade is the T-Mobile Dash (see top image), the operator's communicator-style smartphone - built in the mode of the Samsung BlackJack and Motorola Q. The carrier plans to ship a Windows Mobile 6 edition of the Dash and current Dash owners will be able to move from Windows Mobile 5 to Windows Mobile 6 in the coming months. We've also been told that Palm will offer an upgrade to the Treo 750 at some point.

While other vendors will surely allow their customers to upgrade their devices, nobody else has announced specifics yet.

We've heard a lot more about vendors with plans to release new devices running Windows Mobile 6. These include Europe's Orange with the SPV E650 smartphone - based on the much-written-about HTC Vox, which runs the Standard (formally Smartphone) edition of Windows Mobile. Vox features a keyboard that slides out from underneath its keypad.


         HTC Vox/OrangeSPV E650

There's also Japan's SoftBank Mobile with a new devices from HTC and Toshiba by the middle of this year. The Toshiba could include the ultra high-end G900 with its WVGA display and rear biometric scanner and the lower-end E01.

        
                                             Toshiba G900                                                     Toshiba E01

Additional Microsoft licensees with Windows Mobile 6 devices coming include LG (Redmond's newest OEM) with two models (one a version of its sleek all touch-screen Prada Phone) Samsung's i760 with the slider-keyboard running the Professional (formally Pocket PC Phone) edition of Windows Mobile 6, Hewlett-Packard's candy-bar iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger with the Standard version of the new platform), i-Mate's JAQ4 communicator (Professional) and the ASUS Aries, a communicator-style (Standard) smartphone.

         
            LG Prada                           iMate JAQ4                          Asus Aries

Then there's news that Motorola finally officially introduced not one but two GSM editions of its popular Q smartphone, the aptly named MOTO Q gsm & MOTO Q q9, both running on Windows Mobile 6 Standard. The MOTO Q gsm (due during the second half of 2007) is a quad-band GSM phone that tops out at 2.5G EDGE data networking, while the more advanced MOTO Q q9 (slated for the second quarter) throws in much faster 3.5G HSDPA and more.


                              MOTO Q q9

Many additional operators and hardware makers plan to ship Windows Mobile 6 devices this year as well. These include Cingular Wireless (now the new AT&T), Chunghwa Telecom, Dopod International, HP, Palm Inc., Sprint, Telefonica, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone.

You can now add Lenovo to the list of vendors planning Windows Mobile 6 smartphones. Two new models from Chinese vendor have surfaced since yeterday.

       
iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger                           Samsung i760

Today, there are 140 different phones running Windows Mobile worldwide, in addition to 48 OEMS building these devices, and 124 operators in 55 countries delivering them. Microsoft told PDAStreet, by the end of 2007 all devices coming from these vendors will be built on windows Mobile 6. While some will be available in the April to June timeframe, the majority should be released from the summer onward.

Microsoft just finished its third consecutive year of 90 percent growth for Windows Mobile. In fiscal year 2005 3 million units shipped compared to the same amount during the last quarter of 2006, for example.

Click here to learn more about Windows Mobile 6.