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The Pantach Duo, offered by AT&T for almost year, has just received an update to Windows Mobile 6.1. The upgrade to Microsoft's latest and greatest smartphone platform is available for free here. Where you'll also find detailed instructions on how to perform the update, which Pantach says includes various other enhancements on top of Windows Mobile 6.1.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade includes an update to Internet Explorer Mobile, better wireless connectivity, and the addition of a sliding panel interface to the Windows Mobile today screen. There's also new timesaving features, easier phone navigation and management, stronger security safeguards, and support for Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008.

The Duo is a smartphone for folks who can't decide between a QWERTY thumb-keyboard and numeric keypad. Slide it open horizontally you get the keyboard, vertically and a numeric keypad appears.

All of this is held in a chassis that measures a relatively compact 4.02 x 1.97 x .83 inches. The Duo weighs in at only 3.9 ounces.

Because the Duo is Windows Mobile Standard device, its 2.2-inch, 240 x 320 pixel (QVGA) resolution display isn't a touch screen.

It supports AT&T's UMTS/HSDPA 3G cellular-data data network for download speeds of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps.

Inside the Duo is a 416 MHz XScale processor, 64MB of RAM, 128MB of ROM and Bluetooth wireless with support for wireless stereo headsets. You can boost the amount of storage by 2GB through its microSD slot.

There's also a 1.3 megapixel camera.

Office Mobile allows users to view PowerPoint presentations, as well as view and edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents. Get e-mail pushed and Outlook calendars, tasks and contacts automatically synchronized to the Duo within an Exchange environment through Microsoft’s Direct Push Technology.

See here for more info at AT&T.