Today, we are introduced to the latest device from RIM.  This new Blackberry device is a cross between the Storm and the Bold, as it contains all the main characteristics of the Bold while incorporating a touch screen.  In order to keep the device both aesthetically and functionally pleasant, the keyboard is hidden away behind the touch screen using a “slider” form factor.

More info will be posted as soon as it is available.

bbleaks.com via crackberry

Some specs of the phone:

• 3.5g Data Connectivity
• Quad-Band GSM
• Wifi b/g
• Bluetooth
• Camera
• and of course Navigation

There is set to be a Press Conferance at 11am EST today, here for details.

- written by Bailey Berro

Palm needed something amazing during its CES keynote today. Basically, today was Palm’s last chance to live. Guess what? Palm is going to live, and they are going to live well. The Palm pre not only is a great looking device, it has a touchscreen worthy of competing with the iPhone and it has a slide-down keyboard for great texting as well as navigation. But that’s just the hardware, the interface on this device is fantastic. With similar MultiTouch gestures as the iPhone–flicking, zooming, etc–the pre’s interface organizes all of your web information together without creating duplicate information. The pre also has Microsoft Exchange support for the corporate types. Getting into the device’s core applications, the Calendar and Contact applications are pretty slick. The Calendar literally crunches free time when displaying the day’s events so the actual events are displayed. The Contact application can gather information from all of your information sites on the web and organize them together. The Mail application is relatively normal, but the Messaging application is pretty great. One messaging application for all your instant messaging services as well as text messaging, so less applications to clutter your device. Another cool feature of the phone: along the bottom of the display, the operating system leaves room for notifications from any of your applications. So if you get a message or got an email, it’ll pop up on the bottom. Dealing with price and release date: both are unknown; however, we do have the first half of 2009 as a launch period and Sprint is the exclusive carrier (a downer if you were hoping to use the device unlocked on a GSM carrier), hopefully we’ll see a GSM version down the line. Overall, the pre is a pretty sweet looking device. Coming from the standpoint of an Apple fanboy and an iPhone user, this device is tempting. And if it’s tempting for the Apple fanboys around the world, then it will definitely sell a good amount of phones. Hopefully the device’s Sprint exclusivity won’t kill it though, because Sprint is definitely not the most popular carrier out there. So good job Palm, you’ve finally done something right (and well).

UPDATE – Palm has confirmed to Engadget that a GSM version of the phone is still in the works.

This year marks my third for attending the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.  As a few of you might already know, my father is the almighty Yahya Ahdout, the owner and CEO of dreamGEAR, a video game/iPod accessory and speaker producer and distributor, and he is my ticket into this amazing show.  You can find his wonderful products at many places including your local Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Blockbuster.  One of his latest items is the Warbeast Guitar Controller for all Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Rock Revolution games on PS2/PS3. But, enough of that, lets get to the good stuff.  I will be at the show for its entirety, and I will constantly be blogging and posting every interesting thing that I find.  Like Engadget and Gizmodo, we will be posting about the biggest announcements by all the different companies, but I will also use my time to go around the smaller booths and post about the pretty cool things that everyone forgets about.  As I roam from hall to hall and booth to booth, I will be accompanied by a very good friend of mine, Michael York, who is getting his new blog off the floor, and will be working in compliance with us at blargKABOOM.

Finally, the things I will be bringing with myself on my journey:
Canon EOS 30D – To snap pictures of everything for all you guys to see!
Asus eee 901 – For blogging on the go while on the show floor.
Apple iPhone 3G – For constant tethering, and music on the go. As it is also of course my telephone.
MacBook Pro – Yes, mine is in fact the first generation model, but it will be my home-base for posting in the hotel room. 

And also, a little background for those of you who do not know what CES is; ah god im too lazy, just read about it on Wikipedia here!

via Engadget

Sony Ericsson’s C905 Cyber-shot Phone not only stars in its latest ad, but took the picture as well (now that’s multitasking). The ad, exclusively featured in December’s FHM, solely targets users who want a camera-phone, and it does it pretty successfully. Put simply, this phone took a picture that ended up as an ad in a magazine. Now it may have been taken by a professional photograph, in a professional set, with professional lighting, featured a professional model, and retouched professionally, but it still looks pretty darn good for a photo taken by a mobile phone camera. The phone’s 8.1 megapixel camera probably helped make the picture better, but still, look at the bigger picture: a camera-phone took this picture, and the picture looks pretty darn good.

After just hearing literally days ago October 27 was the date for the BlackBerry Bold’s AT&T launch, we’ve got some real news to report. AT&T has officially announced that the BlackBerry Bold will launch on November 4, for $299 with a 2-year contract. This comes after the device finally receiving certification that it can run on AT&T and is ready, the device has been delayed by months and BlackBerry users will finally get their hands on and official AT&T BlackBerry Bold.

After months of delays and thousands of angry BlackBerry fans waiting for their new savior to launch, AT&T is about to finally release one of the most anticipated phones of the year, the BlackBerry Bold. Boy Genius Report has it on exclusive AT&T internal emails and official and good sources that October 27 is the launch date of the Bold. Of course, unless the phone is delayed for lack of quality again. However, if you can live without having the latest BlackBerry in your hands for about a month or two more, I would stick it out for the smaller, updated Curve 8900, codenamed Javelin. Probably launching late November, mid-December, the new Curve looks like a mini-Bold and includes the new user interface that makes the Bold famous. Looks like BlackBerry users have a decision to make, let us know what you want to get in the comments.

T-Mobile’s G1, the first Google Android-powered phone, is arriving for some lucky customers. Slated for an official launch Wednesday, the G1 has been selling extremely well in pre-orders and customers are slowly but surely starting to receive their Google powered wonders. Whether the phone and the platform itself will turn out to be a success, only time will tell, but if any of you out there have received your phone, tell us what you think in the comments.

The BlackBerry Javelin 8900, the soon-to-be successor to the BlackBerry Curve, hasn’t been too shy about getting shot in public. Even so, having your not-yet-announced (or released) product to be put on Ebay, let alone photographed, isn’t the smartest plan. The Javelin is basically a more Bold-like Curve, with matching color combination and a more angular design. The phone features a keyboard similar to the current Curve, WiFi, GPS, and a 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera. 3G is sadly not included. BlackBerryForums member fr0zen posted pictures of the Javelin, check it here for four more pictures. Check out Ebay to find the $4,056.99 and rising unlocked non-3G phone.

For the first review of the top secret “Apple Killer” as RIM has called it, it hasn’t scored to well. As we’ve known before, the Storm only has four physical buttons, but we didn’t know the screen is one giant button. We’ve learned from the video the device does have an accelerometer and the screen’s orientation will rotate with your rotation of the device, but the review also told us that the screen is just a giant button. You can select things by touching them, but for them to actually open, you need to push the actual screen and it will click. Also, scrolling is funny and is done by holding something and waiting for it to scroll. The review did mention that the keyboard is pretty good, however. We’ll see when the device actually comes out! A mid-November launch for Verizon seems pretty likely for know. The Storm’s part of the video starts at around 2 minutes and 55 seconds in.

via Boy Genius Report

After weeks of speculation, Palm has launched the new Treo Pro. Probably one of the best Treo’s ever, combining the small, sleek design of the Centro with the more business friendly atmosphere of the Treo 800w, the Treo Pro has a few tricks up its sleeve. Not only does it have WiFi, but GPS as well (a first for Windows Mobile Treo’s) and the phone has 3G capability. Probably the least redeeming aspect of the device is its Windows Mobile interface, which isn’t a personal favorite. No US carrier has picked it up yet, so it’ll run you about $549.99 unlocked, but Vodafone and O2 have the device abroad for around €399 w/ a contract. The new smartphone definitely looks like it could be one of the best Treo’s yet, now lets hope that a US carrier picks it up and lowers that hefty price.

Rumors have been spreading out around numerous websites that the iPhone 3G will get a (RED) makeover just in time for the holidays.  Could it also be joined by a 32GB upgrade for the iPhone 3G and a 64GB upgrade for the iPod Touch?

Photo Courtesy of http://www.macblogz.com

RIM’s infamous BlackBerry Thunder, or as they call it internally “Apple Killer”, is rumored to have a top-notch unbelievable keyboard. CrackBerry managed to get some shots of the device, which in itself is rare, and shots of the keyboard in action, also rare. The keyboard will apparently have haptic (vibrating) feedback when you touch the keys the screen will push in a tiny bit (so the whole screen is like a button) to make it more realistic. When the device is in landscape mode, a full QWERTY keyboard is used, but BlackBerry’s SureType keyboard (like on the Pearl) is used in portrait mode. Also, the UI apparently is very similar to current BlackBerry’s in that it relies heavily on the BlackBerry key to bring up menus and such. Hit read more for another picture.

With iPhone 3G launch date getting closer, AT&T decided to give us even more information to chew on. Not only have they given us the plan information (detailed after the break, but we now know that AT&T’s doors will swing open at 8:00 am on July 11th for iPhone 3G customers. Besides that nice tidbit of information, the plans shown below show a definite price hike up since iPhone original. Information to note: plans do NOT include SMS messages, so look at the SMS plans for pricing (they raised the price of the 1500 SMS messages a month plan by $5). Besides the full voice and data plans listed below, AT&T will offer a $30 data plan similar to the current $20 plan offered. SMS messages will not be included in that plan as well. Also, to access the full capability of Exchange service, users must have the Enterprise Data plan which is an extra $15 a month. Besides announcing the plans, AT&T gave details on upgrades, pricing, and related details. Those eligible for an upgrade pricing ($199 and $299) include: “new customers, current postpaid iPhone customers in good standing prior to July 11, and AT&T non-iPhone customers who are currently eligible for an upgrade discount.” Those ineligible for upgrade pricing will put up $399 and $499 for the 8GB and 16GB models, respectively. Activation fees for upgrades are $18, while activation fees for non-AT&T customers will be the normal $36. Lastly, those looking for a unlocked, no contract iPhone will pay $599 and $699. Apparently, that unlocked pricing is more expensive than just buying the phone with the cheapest service, paying the upgrade fee, and then canceling the service. Click the read more link to view the plan pricing.

This is one marketing campaign that’s never been done before, and it could just be one of the most brilliant yet. Sprint is offering the first 1000 people that create a video with it’s new flagship device, the Samsung Instinct, $20. The rules are pretty simple: create a video with the new Samsung Instinct, upload it to YouTube, enter Sprint’s contest. The first 1000 entrants will get $20 from Sprint. The maker of the winning video will receive a $10,000 grand prize. The contest rules aren’t up yet, but the contest is set to start on June 30th. This seems like a pretty great idea coming from the Sprint camp, not only is it loads of practically free advertising, but it’s ridiculously smart too. Tons of people will probably buy the phone so they can try to win the $10,000 and too others this could be the clincher in deciding on buying the device. The Samsung Instinct, incase you’re wondering, is a touchscreen device (retailing at $129.99 after 2-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate) set to go head to head with the iPhone. Sprint already has a big internet advertising campaign pinning the Instinct against the current iPhone and showing off the Instinct’s speed and other features.

Sprint’s Samsung Instinct

Cell phone guided tours didn’t really exist before the iPhone’s way back in June of 2007. Even now, most companies don’t have guided tour videos. RIM thought to itself, “hey, let’s try and show the customers how to use our new BlackBerry Bold.” This idea may have been a good one, but after watching RIM’s video… let’s just say that it didn’t turn out amazingly. The first thing you’ll be able to notice is that the entire video is fake. The UI demo is just computer-made graphics and the footage of the device is digital, as well. Nothing in this video is an actual device in someone’s hand. Every single part of that video is FAKE, none of it is real. Of course, it looks like it would in real life, but it’s not what it looks like to actually see the device in a person’s hands. Also, RIM’s never made something like this before. The Pearl and the Curve started RIM’s dive into the consumer market, but the Bold is probably RIM’s biggest consumer product yet. With all the comparison’s being made to iPhone 3G, the Bold is getting tons of coverage and tons of future-customers’ interest.  So RIM tried to show the phone off to consumers a new way, an Apple-like way. If this was a great video that actually showed off the real device in real hands and showed consumers how they would actually use it, that would be great. But it’s not. RIM simply hasn’t nailed down their marketing strategy for consumers yet and they should work on that in order to gain more of the average consumer market that Apple’s been tapping into.

BlackBerry Bold demo video

Sad news BlackBerry fans: the BlackBerry Bold’s launch on AT&T has been delayed until August. AT&T and RIM need more time to deal with overheating and software issues with battery life, according to The Boy Genius Report. The BlackBerry Bold is still on target to launch on Canada’s Rogers Mobile shortly.

According to Gizmodo’s inside sources, the upcoming iPhone 2.0 firmware will hit Gold Master (ready for public release) this Friday. This is only a tentative ‘planned’ date, but it would be great for developers to get a final version of the software a while before iPhone 3G launch. Now this Gold Master date doesn’t necessarily mean the public will get the firmware on Friday, but it is a confirmation that Apple is on the path for release. Another doubt that the public will get the firmware early: Apple tentatively had a late-June release for 2.0 back in March, but at WWDC the release was pushed to early July. Unless the developers made major progress in the two weeks we’ve had since WWDC, Apple’s probably not going to switch the release back to late-June.

In other iPhone 2.0 news: the new firmware will apparently include a full data reset feature unlike the current. Incase you didn’t know, when you do a data reset on iPhone now, not all of your data is gone. Bits and pieces of data can be recovered causing some security issues if you sell your phone. The new firmware’s data reset feature has been beefed up and will actually erase all data, unlink the remains, and overwrite files to completely leave no traces: for even more proof of a full reset, the new reset will take around an hour to complete. 

Image courtesy of Gizmodo

Have you heard of iPhone G3? No? Me neither. But apparently, someone at TIME Magazine has. In a photo essay of the history of cell phones, TIME has this for 2008: “The iPhone G3 Steve Jobs unvels the latest generation of his revolutionary product. The G3 is faster and less expensive than its predecessor.” Making it even more shocking, TIME’s picture resembles Apple’s iPhone 3G… that Steve Jobs unveiled and that is faster and less expensive than its predecessor. Hmmmmmm, something seems fishy here…

TIME has since edited the caption to the correct iPhone 3G title.

via The Boy Genius Report

LG released a new slider phone, the LG Decoy, onto Verizon Wireless today, bringing a new feature that no other handset has: a built-in, detachable Bluetooth headset on the back. Perfect timing to announce a phone with a Bluetooth headset built-in, considering California will start enforcing a hands-free only law while driving starting July 1. Besides that, it’s pretty basic. It’s got a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder, Bluetooth (obviously), a microSD card slot, MP3 player, and support for V CAST features like Music and Video. The phone retails for $229.99 with 2-year contract, and $179.99 after a $50 online discount.

We’ve got some more 3G iPhone news, and this takes a step backwards from the original iPhone. Remember Steve Jobs calling at home activation through iTunes really revolutionary and much easier than in-store activation, well it seems Steve’s had a change of heart. Starting with iPhone 3G, activation is in-store only, so no more iTunes whenever you please. One big reason for this is probably to lessen the amount of unlocked iPhone’s (if Apple hasn’t already plugged that hole), and it was probably at AT&T’s request. According to AT&T, activation will only take minutes and will be much easier, however. Also, remember how Apple let you purchase iPhone online when it came out. That’s not happening either. So Apple’s feeling this whole “in-store” vibe now, what about you? Let us know in the comments what you think about in-store buying and activating.

via Engadget

A real picture of RIM’s first touchscreen BlackBerry, the Thunder, has finally surfaced. The front, as previously reported, features only four buttons, but the phone itself features lots of side buttons (two convenience buttons, a volume rocker, play/pause, and a ‘lock’ key). The leaked image also confirms the exclusivity to Verizon that we previously heard. The Boy Genius Report has the full scoop on the Thunder.