First news of Windows 7 mobiles due from October...

The first WP7 device is due out in Europe in October, and a month later in the United States. LG aims to be the first manufacturer with a Windows Phone 7 smartphone. There's been some speculation that Microsoft's new OS won't be a very impressive launch. The failure of the Kin gives us good reason to question Microsoft's ability to know what folks want in a smartphone.

While it's too early to know how WP7 will perform, we've at least got a fairly solid idea of what we can expect from the first generation of that platform's phones.

The LG C900: is due out on September 28. It's known to have a sliding QWERTY keyboard and two capacitive buttons, plus a chrome Windows home button. The processor may be around 800 MHz, with a fair amount of on-board storage due to the aftermarket storage limitations of WP7. It's expected for AT&T.

The Samsung Cetus: is rumored to be a Galaxy S packing WP7 instead of Android. The same 4" Super AMOLED display, 1 GHz Hummingbird processor and 16 GB of on-board storage are all expected. AT&T is believed to be the carrier, but I wouldn't put it past Samsung to have versions out for multiple carriers.

The LG E900: It has a large display, 3.7" or so, and seems to be a version of the C900 with no keyboard. The touchscreen is WVGA.

The LG GW910: has been spotted in the FCC already. The leaked manual points towards a "multitasking" button, but no one seems to know much more than that. It has a 5 MP camera with an LED flash.

The HTC Schubert: might be the same phone as the HTC Mozart. The latter is expected for T-Mo, so the Schubert might very well be a CDMA phone. We know to expect an 800x480 display and A2DP support and a single-cut aluminum body.

The HTC T8788: is the best-looking WP7 device yet leaked. It too is a slider, but instead of packing a keyboard the T8788 has a sliding speaker, which is a first for any smartphone I know of. The body is so shiny it almost looks chromed. It's expected for AT&T and will have a kickstand