Okay, now that I’m done driving around with the Magellan RoadMate 1470, it’s time to play catch up. T-Mobile has unveiled two new GPS-enabled smartphones — both from handset maker HTC — including the successor to its original Android phone, the G1, with the introduction of the myTouch 3G. A Linux-based, Google-friendly mobile operating system not your thing? T-Mo has also rolled out the 3G version of its Dash handset, which sticks with Windows Mobile 6.1. Both phones will be available later this summer, T-Mo says.

The Dash 3G, like it’s predecessor, has a full QWERTY keyboard as well as a trackball for the Luddites among us who prefer an old-school analog user interface. Unlike the old Dash, it has onboard GPS enabled, as well as access to T-Mobile’s 3G network. Hopefully they won’t be as dainty as the original Dash; your friendly neighborhood GPS Maniac managed to break two while just walking around.

But the big news is the second generation Android phone. Android is a Linux-based mobile operating system — not quite open source, per se, but close enough for Jazz — championed by Google and its partners; T-Mo’s G1 was the first Android phone to hit the market. The short lowdown its successor, the myTouch 3G, looks like this, according to T-Mobile:

• 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen display and virtual keyboard
• 3.2-megapixel camera
• music player with a pre-installed 4GB microSD memory card
• enhanced video capabilities to record and share pictures and videos via e-mail, MMS or one-click upload to sites such as YouTube and Picasa.
• Wi-Fi (in addition to 3G data network access).

The touchscreen display also orients orients automatically from portrait to landscape mode in most applications, T-Mo says.

T-Mo and the Android folk clearly have their eyes set on the iPhone and the iPhone app store. First there is the annoying spelling, with the capital letter somewhere in the middle of the name, a la iPhone (as an editor, I’d like to damn the marketing person that started this trend to Grammar Hell, where they would spend eternity editing press releases according to AP and/or Chicago style, as well as being constantly and forever yelled at by a cranky managing editor about deadlines and press runs).

Then, in T-Mo’s press release Tuesday — which came out while I was playing with the aforementioned Magellan — the tech specs take a back seat while the company touts the myTouch 3G’s customization. To wit:

With the ability to richly customize menus, wallpapers, icons and more, thousands of Android Market applications to choose from, plus themes and skins that let customers express their style on the inside and outside, myTouch can evolve to become a virtual extension of oneself. Adding to its refined aesthetics and customization options, myTouch will come in three colors — black, white and a distinctive merlot.

Not red, people. Not even dark red. Merlot. Take that, sleek black iPhone.

T-Mo also touts the “deep integration of Google services,” and an application that the company describes as the heart of the myTouch 3G, Sherpa. Created by a company called Geodelic, Sherpa features the Geodelic ENgine for Interest Evaluation (GENIE) — a genie named Sherpa inside the myTouch … honestly, who thinks this stuff up? –  “a learning engine that automatically customizes itself to the user’s preferences. Through behavior and user feedback, the application learns a person’s likes and dislikes, prioritizing recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions. Seamlessly blending behavior recognition, a recommendation engine and location relevant information, this combination of learning is exclusive to Sherpa and unlike any experience currently on the market,” T-Mo says.

It will also grant you three wishes if you rub the touchscreen a certain way, but in an ironic twist, the wishes won’t provide you with what you intended, teaching you a valuable lesson about greed in the process.

Actually, I just made that up.

The Merlot Phone will set you back $199.99 plus a two-year contract with T-Mo. The myTouch 3G will be available for pre-order for current T-Mobile customers starting July 8; devices sold through pre-sale will begin shipping in late July, and national retail availability is slated for early August. Need more info? Check out the dedicated T-Mobile myTouch 3G website, replete with a countdown timer until pre-sale orders begin.

Merlot not your thing? The Dash 3G will be available across the United States next month at T-Mobile retail stores, authorized dealers, and online, T-Mo says. It didn’t say what it would cost, however; the old Dash currently goes for $299 plus ye olde contract.

I’m holding out for the Syrah Phone, myself. Or maybe the Shiraz Phone.

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