Oh yes, we’re back at it! To show our appreciation for making BGR a part of your daily lives, we’re giving away (5) AT&T BlackBerry Bold 9700s. They will be retail units in AT&T boxes but will also be unlocked. We’ll also keep this short and simple: drop in a comment, win a BlackBerry. Here are the official rules…

• To enter, please leave a comment below telling us why you think you should win a brand new BlackBerry Bold 9700.
• This giveaway will run for one week, until Sunday, November 29th, 2009. We will announce the winners sometime shortly after that.
• Please make sure to leave only one comment as leaving more than one will automatically disqualify your entry.
• This is open to anyone over the age of 18, worldwide. (If you are outside of the U.S. and packages shipped to you are subject to an import tax, you will be responsible for that, but we’ll cover shipping.)
• Also be sure to use the email address you’d like to be contacted at if you win. Email no worky, no prize.

That’s it! Good luck.

What’s that sound we hear in the distance? It’s probably cash registers at AT&T going wild as today, the new BlackBerry Bold 9700 is publicly available for sale. The device was offered up to Premiere customers starting at the top of the week, but since general availability is this morning, we have to ask… are you going to hit an AT&T store and grab RIM’s finest? Or maybe you’re on T-Mobile and snagged one already? Let us know in the comments!

Mac aficionados that also enjoy a pack of Marlboros every now and then might want to keep their smoke as far away from their computer as possible for it appears Apple doesn’t take kindly to the habit. Yesterday, Consumerist ran a story about two customers that were denied warranty repairs to their MacBook and iMac by Apple (both had purchased extended AppleCare warranties) simply because the machines were exposed to second-hand smoke. Both appealed to the office of Steve Jobs to no avail. The strangest thing, however, is the explaination that one received from someone at Jobs’ office: the nicotine released from cigarettes is classified as a bio-hazard by the Operational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and as such, Apple employees are within their rights to refuse to work on a machine that has been in contact with the chemical. The only suggestion Apple offered was to take the computers to be fixed somewhere else on their dime. Obviously these two cases are an anomaly, but the question still remains: should Apple be able to walk away from its obligation as set out in the AppleCare agreement because of a little bit of smoke? Just to be clear, there is nothing in the AppleCare fine print that even comes close to singling out smoking as being prohibited.

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Motorola has announced that its brand new handset, the Crush, is available as of this week from U.S. Cellular. Going for $79.95 after a $50 mail-in rebate on a 2-year contract, Motorola is positioning the Crush as an affordable phone with a high-end design. Having said that, we can’t help but think only Motorola would think placing the lock and power buttons on either side of the earpiece is “high-end”. Having said that, the Crush has the following features: 2.8″ 240×400 WQVGA touchscreen display, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD support for cards up to 16GB and EV-DO Rev. 0 connectivity. Is anyone going to check this bad boy out, or does your heart yearn for something else?

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It might not be fancy or scream “look at me”, but Verizon’s now-available BlackBerry Curve 8530 is a smartphone that gets the job done. Kitted out with a 2.5″ display, 2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and 256MB of flash memory, the Curve 8530 is also the first full-QWERTY BlackBerry from Verizon to feature RIM’s new optical trackpad and OS 5.0. Other than that, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Stereo Bluetooth, support for microSD cards and dedicated multimedia keys round out the rest of the phone’s features. Of course at $99.99 on contract there are a lot of better smartphones that are similarly priced, but for BlackBerry lovers fond of Verizon and always looking to save a bit of coin, you can’t really go wrong. Plus it comes in two colors: Black and Smoky Violet (imagine the color of your grandmother’s ugliest pant suit). Yay?

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So far, all of the Black Friday leaks we’ve seen haven’t been all that friendly to smartphone lovers, but according to our sources, Wirefly will be picking up the slack come Friday with the following deals:

Verizon BlackBerry Storm2: $0.99 for new subs / $29.99 for existing VZW customers (Friday only) followed by $9.99 / $49.99 until Monday

AT&T BlackBerry Bold 9700: $0 / $29.99 (Friday to Monday)

Sprint Samsung Moment: $79.99 / $99.99 (Friday to Monday)

If none of those phones catch your fancy, there are still some savings to be had as Wirefly will be waiving activations for AT&T and Verizon phones until Midnight on December 1st.

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Alright, here we go… We’ll be giving away three of the five Motorola DROIDs in our stockpile in this particular contest, and here is what you will need to know if you’re interested in entering:

We realize that a lot of you have been waiting for an iPhone competitor and that Apple’s device gets a decent portion of the spotlight (you can debate whether it is warranted or not in the comments), but since this is one of the first real alternatives for some people, we thought it would be great if we could help shine some light on the passionate and excited DROID-lovers out there. We’re looking for the best, funniest, strangest, most daring, and even dumbest videos possible featuring you or your friends, and the reasons why you think you deserve to win.

You could go to an Apple or AT&T store and read them the riot act on why you think the DROID is better than the iPhone (removable battery, the network, QWERTY keyboard — whatever) and capture this on camera, you could show us your current phone situation and plead your case, you could shave a BGR and Motorola logo into your head on film — we’re not joking. Whatever you want to do, we are willing to look at. Within reason.

We’ll pick the three most amazing videos we receive and post them in a follow-up post. Here are the official rules:

• To enter, please submit your video by uploading it to a video sharing website like YouTube, Vimeo, whatever your choice is. You may password protect the video if you would like, just be sure to give us access.
• Please email the link to your video to droidvideo at boygeniusreport dot com — if you email us an actual video attachment, we will delete it and not count it.
• This contest is open to anyone in the U.S. over the age of 18 years old.
• By submitting a video to the BGR DROID giveaway contest, you assume all responsibility and liability for your entry and indemnify BGR.
• This giveaway will run for one week, until Friday, November 27th, 2009. We will announce the winners sometime shortly after that.
• Feel free to talk about your submissions or ideas in the comments!

After RIM’s release of the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 flip-phone it was hard to tell what direction the former candy bar style handset was headed, and rumors of the models demise began to circulate around intertubes. However, the rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated as an updated 3G Pearl has been whispered for months, and it looks like RIM has gone back to the Pearl’s form-factor roots with its latest spin on the classic, the BlackBerry Pearl 9100 — code name Striker or Stratus. The 9100 prototype in question is a GSM device with RIM’s now standard optical trackball, SureType keyboard, 3G, Wi-Fi, and BlackBerry OS 5.0; it also incorporates many of the stylistic changes of the BlackBerry Bold 9700. We’ll stay on top of this one and provide you more details as they become available, but for now there is a short teaser video from salomondrin.net all queued up for you after the bounce.

[Via CrackBerry]

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We’ve just received a full spec list for the very blurry Motorola Motus and it’s pretty interesting. Why, you ask? Besides AT&T 3G support, the specs are pretty similar if not identical to the Motorola CLIQ. Our connect didn’t flat out tell us that the handset would be hitting AT&T, but hey, we can dream right? Here are the full specifications for the Motorola Motus:

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band 7.2Mbps HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100MHz)
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
• 256MB RAM
• aGPS
• Wi-Fi
• 3.1″ capacitive 480×320 display
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Weight: 133g
• 1400mAh battery
• microSD slot
• Qualcomm MSM 7201A CPU
• MOTOBLUR

Last but not least, we’ve been told the Motus is not a slider but a unique “flip” phone. That’s all we’ve got for now, but we’ll keep you updated as always.

Thanks, Daddy G.!

Looks like Virgin Mobile Canada is ready to break its iPhone hymen. Yesterday they announced that they will be offering both the iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS in retail stores in “the coming months.” Oh Sir Richard, how we love thee. We suppose you want details, but we don’t have any — the press release is a blistering 31 words and 198 characters long, hell if they had been a bit more succinct they could have just tweeted it — as Virgin Canada’s website has yet to be updated with the news. We’ll continue to follow this one as it develops.

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Not too much to say here other than an OS update for the Verizon BlackBerry Tour 9630, 4.7.1.61, has started to trickle out. Although it’s already available to download from Verizon’s website and through BlackBerry Desktop Manager, we’ve been told that a handful of users will receive on-device update notifications throughout the night with general OTA availability tomorrow. No change log has been released. Let’s just hope that it’s not much longer until OS 5.0 drops for your beloved tuh tuh tuh TOUR (yeah, we remember).

If there was ever a contest for blurriest photos taken post-haste, this image of a Motorola CLIQ look-alike, rumored to be called Motus, takes the cake. There isn’t much to be said or gathered about the Motus so far, except that it looks like a CLIQ with a flat keyboard and no D-pad for navigation. Said to be coming out in Q1 2010, rumors also peg this device as packing Android 1.6 and a 5 megapixel camera, so it’s not as if anything terribly special is going on. Unfortunately, the image is far too blurry to really make out the left side of the keyboard and what the bright yellow spot is. Maybe image stabilization should be standard on camera phones now.

Thanks, Vitala!

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Sony Ericsson has us scratching our heads just one day after we spent some time with its new XPERIA X10 smartphone. During our lunch meet-up, SE told us it was hoping to work with U.S. carriers in getting the X10 into the pockets of Americans on the cheap. We’re still hoping that SE will make this happen, but a new rumor would see the X10 retail for a whopping $879 when it hits the market during the first quarter of 2010. We know that SE is hoping to get back on the relevance map and turn a profit while it’s at it, but a sky-high price tag on a device that failed to knock our socks off probably isn’t going to cut it with consumers.

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We can file this one under rumor of a rumor — you’ve been warned — so please, proceed with caution. DigiTimes is reporting that Apple’s yet to be announced tablet device will be delayed until the second half of 2010 due to a last minute design change, specifically, the use of a 9.7″ OLED LG display. The report goes onto say that the delay is a strategic move by Apple due to the current cost of the OLED panels, which currently wholesale for around $500 a pop. The price of LG’s panels are expected to drop significantly in late 2010 as they revamp their production line with newer equipment. The report is oozing with speculation on release dates, price, manufacturer, and potential future models, so we’ll let you check out the dirt for yourself.

[Via Gizmodo]

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Alright, all you BlackBerry-modding freaks, grab your screwdrivers and listen up. Our pals over at Colorware have just informed us that you no longer have to send them your beloved BlackBerry Curve 8900 for inking. Oh no. Now they’ll send you the rainbow colored parts and let you do the dirty work. This service, which is already available for the Bold 9000, comes with a price tag of $175. It might seem like a lot, but hey, you can’t put a price tag on steez. Colorware’s website hasn’t been completely updated for the new service, but you can always hit them up now to see what shade of fuchsia looks best on your 89-hundo. Happy modding.

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Guess what, Sprint Hero users? The update that you have all been so patiently waiting for has finally arrived. No, we’re not talking about anything as big Android 2.0, but a bug killing maintenance release. Available OTA and coming in at 3748377 bytes, firmware 1.56.651.2 fixes that pesky SMS issues which caused significant battery drain as well as enables the device to play friendly with DST. So far we’re not noticing any other changes (we wish there were an official change log we could take a peek at), but if you spot anything, be sure to let us know. We love hearing from you.

Thanks, Mark!

Although initial reviews have concluded that it’s far from perfect, today marks the first day of availability of the Nokia N900 in the United States. Available through Nokia’s flagship stores in Chicago and New York City for $649 (as well as at nokiausa.com), the N900 has also been spotted on various online shops such as Amazon for a little over $500. At that price it’s all very tempting — especially if you’re a die hard Nseries fan that wants to get a glimpse of the future with this Maemo 5 business– but that’s a decision you’re going to have to make on your own.

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Today we hit up Sony Ericsson’s shindig in NYC for some one-on-one time with its XPERIA X10, and so far (it’s a non-retail prototype) it looks like SE has a decent device on its hands. Of course, we all know the X10 is running Android 1.6, but SE has created its own UI, or UX as it prefers to say (short for User Experience), called Nexus. Like other UI overlays for Android, Nexus focuses on social media integration, entertainment and simplifying contact info by aggregating user information. Two very unique applications that SE has integrated into Nexus are Timescape and Mediascape. Timescape is much like viewing your contact information on HTC’s Sense UI and Motorola’s MOTOBLUR: you can view your contact’s email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter updates all in one place. Mediascape allows you to access photos, video and music from your phone as well as YouTube and PlayNow, SE’s music store. The great thing about Timescape and Mediascape is that they recognize connections between your contacts (like facial recognition), music and media and it makes suggestions on how you can communicate or get a guide to new media. Now that we’ve got the software aspect out of the way, hit the jump to see not only what think of the device itself, but quite a few pretty pics and a video overview!

Our initial impression of the XPERIA X10 is mixed. The screen is a vivid and crisp 4″ capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 480 x 854 while the device itself is both light and thin. It also packs smartphone basics like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, 3.5mm headset jack and a rather impressive 8.1 megapixel camera. The device feels nice in the hand, although those with small hands might think it’s rather large. Still, it’s not cumbersome by any means. When running through the screens, we did experience a bit of lag even though the X10 is running the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. And while SE has added its own UI over Android 1.6, it still feels like a bare-bones Android device. The UI is very functional and it gets the job done, but it’s not as attractive as HTC’s Sense UI. We’re not quite sure what it is about the XPERIA X10, but we’re just not feeling that “wow” we got with the Droid, for example.

SE says it’s working with U.S. carriers to get the XPERIA X10 subsidized in the States, but in the even that doesn’t happen it could be another expensive device that might be overlooked in the Americas – we’ve got our fingers crossed that AT&T or T-Mobile will pick this up. There’s no word on when this will be released, but with all the press and fanfare we’re thinking it shouldn’t be much longer.

For those of you who were completely underwhelmed by the realities of Project Dark and have a fear of post-paid contract rate plans, T-Mobile has something new for you. Say hello to “T-Mobile Complete.” T-Mobile Complete, and the accompanying “Complete Kits”, will come with the phone of your choice and, uh, well…that’s about it. No contracts, commitments, or legalities involved. Now, we know what you are thinking, why is this news? Well, T-Mobile has stated that the BlackBerry 8520 will be included in these plans as well, and for the first time in the States you can get yourself a BlackBerry device and not be locked into a contract. Sounds good to us. Details are still scarce on the exact pricing of the 8520 and the accompanying pre-paid plan, but we’ve heard that the kits will start at $59 with unlimited talk plans starting around $50/month. What do you guys think? Good idea? No details on the T-Mobile website just yet, but you can hit the jump to read about the release.

T-Mobile announces the availability of T-Mobile Complete, a pre-packaged no-annual contract solution that offers the value of a monthly plan and the first pay-in-advance BlackBerry smartphone from a national U.S. carrier.  With T-Mobile Complete, customers can choose from four handsets starting at $59.99, which includes first month free. Customers can also choose from a range of unlimited plans starting at $50 per month. T-Mobile Complete is currently available nationwide at Best Buy and at select Walmart locations.

T-Mobile Complete kits are the easiest way to give phones this holiday season. Just buy the kit, wrap it, give it as a gift, and the recipient can activate service from anywhere, anytime – and they get the first month free! One of the four devices available through T-Mobile Complete is the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone, the first pay-in-advance BlackBerry smartphone available from a national carrier.  Smartphones will be a hot gift option this holiday season – in fact, T-Mobile expects smartphones to account for 40 percent of its sales in the fourth quarter of 2009.

T-Mobile Complete is just one great holiday gift option from T-Mobile.  With a wide array of devices this holiday season – including the broadest lineup of Android smartphones of any carrier in the U.S. – there’s something for every type of customer.

Please let me know if you have questions about this new offering from T-Mobile. For more information on holiday giving, we’re happy provide our guide on how to give smartphones as holiday gifts.

Just a quick  little heads up for our Canadians brothers and sisters that at this moment may or may not be doing battle with polar bears on glaciers the size of Manhattan — TELUS has released the BlackBerry Storm2. Retailing for $599.99, the Storm2 is also available at the subsidized price of $199.99 provided one is willing to take on a 3-year contract with a minimum of a $50 voice and data plan. So what’s it going to be, Canada? Yay or nay?

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According to the Maemo marketing team, it looks like it’s already in motion. Apparently Nokia still has some Nseries devices in the pipeline which will still use S60 as the operating system, but after those are out of the factory, it seems like Maemo will be the OS of choice for Nokia’s Nseries. That doesn’t mean that Nokia has plans to ditch Symbian altogether yet, as the enterprise-friendly Eseries and new Xseries will still run Symbian for the foreseeable future.

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Haven’t had your fill of Android handsets yet? Neither have we. T-Mobile just hit us up with a Samsung Behold II and here are some first impressions:

Physically the unit feels pretty good to hold, albeit a little cheap. The weight is good, but the choice of a glossy plastic makes it feel a little chintzy to us. The back cover has a certain depth to it and it’s pretty darn cool, but we can see it scratching really easily if you’re not careful. As far as the front of the device, the buttons are surprisingly pretty easy to press despite their intimidating layout, and the 5-way navigational circle is also pretty friendly. Now for what we don’t like…

Samsung needs to learn that it isn’t 1999 anymore, and re-skinning most of Android’s decent but not great UI elements isn’t a good idea. We literally feel like we’re in downtown Seoul when the display is on — neon blues, neon orange, neon yellow — all on a black background which really doesn’t make for the most appetizing phone interface. Additionally, you can no longer press the Menu key to unlock the display once you turn it on, you’re forced to press a dedicated unlock / lock key on the side of the phone. Awk. Ward. While the paper specs on the phone (capacitive screen, 5 megapixel camera, AWS 3G, etc.) are definitely competitive, at first glance, the user experience seems to be way too involved for the average user. It’s not friendly by any means and the price point of $199 seems borderline laughable with other devices available at this time. On and off T-Mobile.

While it is set to go on sale November 22nd, business customers on AT&T have been able to order the 9700 starting yesterday morning. If you got in early enough, there’s a good chance your unit shipped out the same day just as ours did. Here’s a quick unboxing for anyone desperately waiting for their BlackBerry 9700s to arrive, and you can always re-read our BlackBerry 9700 review in case you really want to tear your hair out. Also, if anyone else picked up an AT&T unit, or even a T-Mobile unit for that matter, we salute you, friends. BlackBerry fiends need to stick together…

P.S. We’ve been told most AT&T store locations actually have BlackBerry 9700s in stock as of now, but they’re not supposed to sell them until the 22nd.

Click on over to our AT&T BlackBerry 9700 unboxing gallery!

We have some news coming out of the world of those new-fangled “search engines” that are so popular with the kids; it looks like Microsoft’s re-branded search product’s market share is creeping up on double digits in the U.S., currently sitting at 9.9% for September of 2009. Bing’s share of internet spelunking is up 1.4% for the year and 0.5% in September alone, compare that with -3% on the year for Yahoo! and +2.4% for Google. Not too shabby, considering bing.com was just launched on May 28th of this year. Here at BGR we are pretty loyal Googler’s, what about you? Any die hard, uh, Binger’s out there?

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We and everyone else that has managed to get some hands on time with the Motorola DROID came to the same two conclusions — it’s a damn good smartphone, but its camera couldn’t focus for beans. Overnight, however, our tips line was literally flooded with reports that the DROID’s autofocus camera was finally doing its job and, well, automatically focusing. First reporters were humorously utterly convinced that their wiping off the anti-glare coating on the lens was responsible for the improvements, but as more and more people starting chiming in it became increasingly apparent that someone, somewhere was hard at work behind the scenes pushing out a silent update ahead of the oft-discussed OTA update due out on December 11th. Such a silent update is a bit of an odd move, but to be perfectly honest, it could go either way. We’re not convinced it improved our camera performance as we never had an issue focusing. Our issue was even though the boxes went green to signal a “lock” our pictures still came out blurry. But we’re curious; how many of our readers with a DROID have experienced a tremendous improvement in camera performance?

Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

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“T-Mobile is pleased to announce that Sidekick sales have resumed. New pricing for the Sidekick LX 2009 will be $149.99 with a two-year contract and the Sidekick 2008 will be $49.99 with a two-year contract.”

But after everything that happened, and heck, all the new hotness available, is anyone going to be picking up a Sidekick anytime soon?

We’ve been receiving multiple reports that BlackBerry Internet Service, or BIS, is down for many people — possibly worldwide. Initially, we thought the outages were only affecting certain carriers, but users from multiple carriers have reported a service interruption for what seems to be a few hours now. Naturally, we’ll keep you updated as we receive more news, but for now we’re not quite sure what’s causing this outage as it seems to be possibly affecting BlackBerry users on a global scale and we have numbers of around 75-80% in terms of users affected. Is there anyone out there currently experiencing data issues? Let us know in the comments!

One of our connects just hit us up with some intriguing Apple information. According to them, what you see detailed above is a shot of Apple’s yearly Black Friday deals. It’s reported to be something Apple will email out shortly. This time around, it looks as if Apple will be offering up to 30% off on all iPods (Update: excluding iPhone and iPod shuffle, sorry), up to 25% off Macs, and up to 15% off all accessories as well as Apple software and hardware. The deal is only good for the day of November 27th and if that’s not good enough, “select” Apple stores will open at 6AM. This is unconfirmed but it doesn’t seem too unrealistic. Thoughts?

Uh oh… we’re not sure if you’re ready for this, guys. Since we were the first ones to take you up close with the Motorola DROID, we thought it would be fitting if we ran the hands down best Motorola DROID giveaway — we’ll be giving away (5) brand new Motorola DROID handsets for Verizon Wireless. Motorola doesn’t answer our emails and Verizon declined (nicely), so we paid for these out of our own pockets. We’re going to make the contests fun and exciting but don’t worry, you won’t have to jump through hoops. Plus, there is word in the BGR BlackBerry Messenger group that we’ll be giving away some BlackBerry 9700s shortly? Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Just to be super, super clear… dropping a comment here doesn’t enter you into any of the giveaways. It does, however, tell us how excited you guys are about them, and we’ll have more information shortly.

Looks like AT&T is adding a few new handsets to its lineup for the holiday buying season as today, Ma’ Bell announced it will be carrying the BlackBerry 8520 and the new LG Shine II, all now added to its “best in the world smartphone lineup.” The Shine II is a 3G slider phone with a 2.2″ screen, stereo Bluetooth, Java 2.0, and a November 22nd release date. The Shine Part Deux will also set you back $119 with a 2-year commitment. Switching gears, the more familiar BlackBerry 8520 will boast the now-standard specs of: WiFi, a 320×240 display, 512 MHz processor, 256 MB of memory, and a 2 megapixel camera capable of video recording. The exact release date of the updated Curve was not specified but rather listed as within “the next few weeks.” Any takers?

Read 8520

Read Shine II