The Samsung Rogue, which is being rolled out by Verizon Wireless today, has received some very positive reviews as a "text messaging dream" (albeit in this press release from Nuance). It is a very sleek "slider" model with a bright touchscreen display backed up by a full QWERTY keyboard. It also ships with a broad range of popular entertainment and social networking applications and features, including "one-touch" access to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Photobucket. It carries a modest retail price of $99 (after a mail in rebate from Verizon Wireless).

Yet, what is really interesting about the Rogue from the point of view of i2Go is that it arrives with the capabilities of Nuance Voice Command pre-installed. Samsung was one of the first manufcaturers to integrate VoiceSignal's VSuite software in its feature phones. With the push of a button owners are prompted to "Say a command". In response they can  manage their phonebooks, access music in the phone's library, voice dial, and initiate a number of "Go to" commands which support speech-initiated Web browsing, access to calendar entries, game playing and the like.

The Rogue also ships with Nuance VoiceMode, which is a speech-to-text rendering technology designed to run on mobile phone, specifically to support text messaging. It's called a "texter's dream" because the spoken word has been proven to be the fastest way to enter text messages. Still, the companies recognize that the subject matter of many a text message calls for the silence of the keyboard. That's why the Rogue has a four-row physical QWERTY keyboard, as well as a "soft" keyboard that can be displayed on the touchscreen. Entry of text through either means can be accelerated through the use of the T9 "predictive text" software that is also baked into the unit.