I've got a friend named Albert who's a VZW customer and uses an LG enV.  A least two of the buttons on his phone don't work very well anymore, and he's long since discovered some flaws in the calendar and to-do software that he'd like to see fixed.  For awhile Albert had his eye on the still not released Samsung i760 smartphone, but he wisely stopped holding his breath for it awhile ago.

Well, Albert, your new phone may have arrived, and no it's not a Samsung.

Verizon showed off their "Next" series of holiday handsets yesterday and they've got a fancy Website up where you can go pretend to play with them all, too.  The flagship phone is the LG Voyager (VX-10000), which is a sleeker, sexier enV with a full-frontal touchscreen.  Yeah, it looks kind of like an iPhone with that big front panel display, but then it opens "the long way" to reveal an interior screen and full QWERTY keyboard a la the enV except even bigger.

Early reports are that the Voyager is big but not too unwieldy, and that it shows some notable improvement in Verizon's weakest area - the user interface as does the Venus" VX-8800.  Voyager also features a 2 megapixel camera, VCAST Mobile TV compatibility, and a microSD card slot.

Word is Voyager - along with Venus, the Blackberry Pearl, and the Samsung Juke - will be available sometime before Thanksgiving.  No word on pricing, however.

You can virtually drool all over Voyager and sign up for more info on Verizon's luscious new "Next" website.