Unfortunately we didn’t get round to Haier’s booth at CES 2008, so we missed their HG-N99 smartphone.  Now on the face of things, this GSM/GPRS/EDGE Windows Mobile handset is nothing special - you know you’re hunting for features when you quote “polyphonic ringtones” – but its stand-out lure is dual-SIM, double-standby.  That means you can slap two SIM cards in and have them both active at the same time.

Haier did point out that you can’t simultaneously make calls with both the accounts, but you can certainly receive two calls and field them both.  Although some carriers will rent you a second line, and there are adaptors that let you switch between two SIM cards by power-cycling the phone, a handset that keeps both active is quite unusual, certainly in the US where Haier are currently in talks with operators.

Otherwise the spec sheet is pretty bare, with a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, messaging suite, mini-USB, WAP browser with Java support and space for a microSD card.  Oh, and those aforementioned polyphonic ringtones!

CNET [via Mobile-Review]