One of our connects just blessed us with a couple shots of the HTC DROID Eris and graciously unboxed the retail packaging. We could bore you with meaningless details about how the phone is thinner and lighter than the Sprint HTC Hero, feels much better in the hand, and is generally the best Android device besides the Motorola DROID our connect has used, but we’ll stop there. Enjoy the photos!

Thanks, Jon!

Forget the first commercial you saw, this one takes the cake. We’ve been told it should start airing on TV this week. Video is after the break.

One of our really solid connects just had some information for us and we think you’re going to love it. With the Motorola DROID being Verizon’s hot handset at the moment, you’d figure that the Moto would be it for a while, right? Well, if our guy is right, we could soon be bombarded with a lot more handsets. Apparently if the DROID launch/sales go really well, (is probably will) Verizon will push up handset releases and practically aim for the smartphone crown. Were talking HTC Passion, Motorola Calgary, Curve2, etc.

Apparently the Curve2 or HTC Passion / Dragon will launch on Black Friday, “whatever is ready first.” The second device would be used in a holiday push around mid-December. I asked why Verizon wouldn’t space this out more and he/she said “best network, best smartphones campaign.” Fair enough.

There are also some handsets coming soon that we “don’t know about,” apparently. Could all four Android devices really launch on Verizon before the end of the year, or really close to it? Plus a couple BlackBerrys, and some other stuff that hasn’t surfaced yet? It seems a little crazy, but hey, more power to them.

UPDATE: We’ve also been told that Verizon will release 15 new phones, mostly smartphones, starting with the BlackBerry Storm2 and continuing into the end of December.

Who’s up for one more shot of the HTC Droid Eris? One of our connects wrote us in and dropped this photo on us. They also said, “Overall the same as the Sprint Hero but for some reason it seems faster, slightly thinner and taller.” Otherwise it “seems the same” and is running Android 1.5. We already told you the Droid Eris will be powered by a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, and while it won’t ship with Android 2.0, well, you know where we’re going with this…

UPDATE: Updated with better shot!

Thanks, PhenomenalONE!

A lot of people loved our tech-focused segment on the all-new 2010 Mercedes E-Class and we’re following up with a nice video overview of the vehicle. We were lucky enough to meet with Bart Herring who is product manager for the E-Class series, and in addition to giving us a great presentation on the car, took some time to help put this video together.

We’ve been told that in conjunction with the DROID launch, Verizon is going to be creating a “first-of-its-kind” interactive experience in New York City. What’s the name of it? “DROID Does Times Square.” Our connect says that this experience will let people control two of Times Square’s largest digital billboards — the NASDAQ and Reuters signs — using only voice commands. What you see above is a “sneak peak” of what it’s going to look like.

Who wants to buy a $2,000 netbook? Well, if you’d like to walk away with one for $299.99 and a $60/mo AT&T data plan for 2 years, you can. Otherwise the smarter move would be to purchase it at retail price of around $599.99 and get a data plan from AT&T without a two-year commitment. But regardless of the method of purchase, if you want a Nokia Booklet, Best Buy has got ‘em. Will they sell you one before November 15th? Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. One more shot after the break.

If you’re a Droid-chaser, you’ve no doubt been hooked to BGR for the past few weeks (more than normal, maybe?). We have our very own Motorola Droid handset, and although the software isn’t final, it’s solid enough where we feel comfortable giving you a nice preview of the unit. Remember, again, this isn’t a final unit and things can and will change for the better. Read on for our Motorola Droid Preview!

P.S. As we have been doing, we’ll follow up on this preview with a review based on a retail unit at release.

P.P.S. I just want to add that this is a Google Experience phone, and my line about Verizon and GPS was a joke. Verizon hasn’t and won’t touch or control any functionality on the Droid. GPS is 100% open, there’s Wi-Fi, Android Market, etc.

Hardware / Build quality:

When the Motorola Droid is released in the coming couple weeks, it will be the most advanced Android device on the market as far as specifications go. Software too, as it’s the only one said to be running Android 2.0 until months from now, but that’s for another section. There’s a 550MHz Texas Instruments OMAP3430 processor, separate PowerVR GPU, 256MB of RAM, CDMA Rev A., Wi-Fi, GPS, a digital magnetometer, accelerometer, proximity sensors, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash, notification LED, four touch-sensitive navigation buttons, a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, 3.5mm headset jack, microUSB port — jesus. In the last year or two, spec sheets really haven’t meant all that much to people. Rational people, that is. What means a lot more is the OS your phone is running since that’s what going to enable you to take bad ass pictures and immediately share them with a close group of friends, or edit work documents on your phone while conducting an online presentation, and so on. But what’s actually pretty funny is, Android devices have been a little underpowered, so the spec sheets do matter, and the Motorola Droid absolutely topples every single Android device ever released as far as the hardware specifications are concerned.

We love the build quality of this phone. It’s mostly metal, and while it’s heavy, it gives you a reassuring quality feel that you just don’t find much nowadays as handsets get thinner, lighter, smaller, and cheaper. It’s practically the opposite of the Motorola CLIQ as far as the physical attributes of the device goes. Really solid and it seems to be manufactured very well. The slider is not spring-assisted, but when you push the metal bezel around the gorgeous display upwards, you get a satisfying click. It does the same when you slide it closed as well.

Screen:

It’s the largest capacitive screen we’ve ever seen and it’s positively amazing. It’s crisp, sharp, vibrant, bright, and really, really responsive. It’s almost iPhone-level in terms of the capacitive touch. We’re not sure if the screen is glass or plastic (we’ve heard glass but it’s incredibly hard to tell), but it doesn’t seem like it would scratch easily regardless of the material. The 3.7 inch display powers a 854×480 resolution image and shows off Android’s true colors. You see what we did there?

What’s interesting is this whole touch-button phase. On the HTC Desire/Predator/Your face, it also features touch-sensitive buttons just like the Droid does. The great part about the Droid’s implementation is that there’s haptic feedback when you press a button and to be perfectly honest, we don’t mind them at all. Would we prefer physical keys? Yeah, sure, but these work just fine and we haven’t come across any problematic occurrences.

Keyboard:

Everyone is bitching over the keyboard. Well, it’s probably better than you’d think, but it’s not perfect. As has been discussed ad nauseum, the unit we have has two blank keys. They don’t press in at all, so it’s not just like there isn’t anything written on them, they are just flat. We had initially been told this was because the keyboard design wasn’t finalized, and if you’ve been Droid-chasing for a while you’ll have noticed many different keyboard revisions. Love it or hate it, this keyboard design is actually final and will be on the device you buy from your favorite Verizon Wireless store. As far as the actual ‘board goes, there isn’t as much feedback as we’d have liked from the keys, but since the phone is so darn thin, there had to be compromises somewhere. People have asked why Motorola didn’t just make the phone into a keyboard-less version, and our answer would have to be: they are. We like the keyboard on the Droid and we’re really anal about keyboards. The directional pad on the right is a little weird at first but it doesn’t hamper your typing too much, but there isn’t enough tactile feedback to make it perfect. Something that’s a little annoying is the proximity of one key to another key, but all in all we’ve been able to bang out emails, texts, and other forms of text entry very efficiently on the hardware keyboard very quickly after using the device. It’s not the best, but it certainly isn’t bad, and it’s definitely better than the T-Mobile G1’s keyboard.

And oh… a ton of people are asking, and we’re not sure why you wouldn’t assume it already, but you can indeed use the on-screen keyboard in portrait as well as landscape mode.

Phone calling / speaker / call quality:

The Droid sounds great as a phone. Calls with the handset over Verizon’s network sounded clear and the phone application itself performed really well. It’s speedy and there weren’t any hiccups unlike some other Android devices we’ve fooled around with. The dialpad is pretty standard and if you’ve used an Android device, you should be right at home as this is a straight Google affair after all. Google Voice obviously works flawlessly (we’re not sure why it wouldn’t, unless you’re talking about the animal sacrifices Verizon makes to disable GPS on the phone…) and the phone application is quick! That’s probably what we love most about it… number dialed. Call connected. Have a nice day.

OS:

Ah, Android 2.0. We’ve detailed it quite a bit, but we can definitely explore it a little more for you… I personally never liked Android 1.0. Well, that’s not true completely. I liked it, but I just didn’t see it being the OS we expected. It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t fluid, it offered very basic functionality — not a good way to start. What has happened between Android 1.0 and 2.0 is that a lot of missing functionality has been added, the UI has been made a little bit more streamlined in some places, and it generally brings the OS up to speed with other mobile platforms. Out of the box Exchange compatibility is our absolutely favorite new feature, but we’re sure people will appreciate the new unified email Inbox, voice commands / search, a new Google Maps, better multimedia support, a new browser, and the list goes on and on. Once you have a chance to use Android 2.0 on any device, whether it’s HTC or Motorola or Samsung, we think you’re going to love it.

Battery:

This might come as a shock to many, but the Motorola Droid has the best battery life out of any Android device we’ve ever tested. It completely smokes the Motorola CLIQ — obviously it’s not constantly pushing as much data, but it’s not even a fair comparison. With push Exchange configured, Facebook, and a linked push Google account (Gmail, contacts, etc.) we had no problem lasting through a whole day of usage. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were disabled, but it’s still a pretty amazing performer as far as the battery is concerned. Yes, it has a user-replaceable battery, but it’s probably good enough to be sealed up to be honest. Motorola recently made a boo boo and let the Droid appear on their website, and official battery times are: 6.5hrs of continuous usage (phone + web + email + anything else, continually) or around 270 hours of standby time.

Accessories:

There’s a really cool accessory that we’re told will be available at launch and it’s a charging dock/multimedia station. It turns your phone into an alarm clock/weather display/music player by using a magnet to control and launch the corresponding application. We discovered that by putting the phone in our BlackBerry 9700 holster in a certain position, Car Home would launch.

We then moved the magnet and the multimedia mode launched, so we’re guessing there’s going to be some sort of car cradle/dock/thing that will be available as well in addition to the above station.

Conclusion:

You know how we roll at BGR, we don’t hold anything back — if it’s hot, it’s hot. If it’s not, it’s not, and we’re not afraid to call it like it is. The Motorola CLIQ was a pretty big disappointment for me personally, but oh man does the Droid make up for it. Sure, there’s a little hype sprinkled in because this is the first Android 2.0 device I’ve had the pleasure of using, but once you move past the initial “wow” factor, the Droid really delivers. Whether it’s Verizon’s ad campaign or Motorola’s that pits the Droid against the iPhone it doesn’t matter. The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone. And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat. So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good. Did you notice how Verizon still hasn’t announced the BlackBerry Storm2?

We really enjoyed using the Motorola Droid and think you’re going to love it. It’s not as straight forward as an iPhone and a little more involved than a BlackBerry, but if you’re up for the challenge, so is the Droid.

There are a couple more comparison shots below!

Uh… so much for an announcement event? Or Motorola just doesn’t know what the hell is going on (most likely the reason), because the Motorola Droid makes an official appearance on Moto’s U.S. site. It just might be that we were sent this direct link which isn’t meant to be public, but… you know how that’s going to work out. In any case, the Motorola Droid, which we have torn limb from limb (check for our preview tomorrow) is indeed a bad ass mama jama, but if you don’t want to wait for our preview, hit the jump for some screenshots!

P.S. Something to note is that the browser supports HTML5 and Motorola says Flash 10 support is coming in 2010. K.

Thanks, David!

Ready for more Motorola Droid nonsense? Good. We’ve just got a couple images of a promotional mailer that went out to one of our connects. It has a pretty decent shot of the device on it (What? You need more photos?) and those ever-clever “I do” key features the Droid, uh, does. Check out another two shots after the bounce.

Thanks, The Busymind!

If you thought you were in Android heaven, think again. We’ve just been given the go-ahead from one of our Motorola connects, and what you’re looking at is the Motorola Calgary (that’s a codename you might remember) slated to hit Verizon. Let’s focus on what appears to be a pretty popular theme with Motorola’s recent comeback efforts: a decent low-to-mid range handset with BLUR, and a high-end super smartphone, both Android of course. This would give Verizon customers (mostly those fickle teenyboppers) a real smartphone completely positioned for their liking, instead of the featurephones which shall remain nameless that are currently available on Big Red. In terms of hardware, there’s three touch-sensitive Android keys on the display, an optical joystick which we’ve been told performs really well, a workable QWERTY keyboard, and it sounds decent as a phone. The Motorola Calgary also features a 3 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, GPS, digital magnetometer, Wi-Fi, microSD card slot, and spring-assisted slider.

Our connect has been testing it over the past month and said the OS builds running on it are incredibly smooth as well as responsive. It’s certainly no Droid, but hey, it doesn’t have to be. No hard release date but we might be looking at a Q4 release… Hit the jump for some more pics!

Thanks, Big Ed!

We absolutely nailed this puppy to the wall over and over and over again, so it’s only fitting we’d be doing the first actual unveiling, right? We’re not going to get too in-depth though, that will come at a later time. Here are some brief thoughts before the photos:

• It’s running Android 2.0. Duh.
• It’s thin. Just slightly thicker than an iPhone 3GS and the thinnest QWERTY-slider we’ve ever seen.
• It is the fastest Android device we’ve ever used. (It’s running a TI OMAP3430 processor)
• The feel of the device is very reminiscent of the OQO 02 model computer. Just smaller. It’s metal with a non-spring-assisted slide, very sturdy, and half soft-touch plastic.
• Awesome capacitive display. Plus it’s huge. Easily the best screen we’ve ever seen on an Android handset, and an amazing screen overall.
• The QWERTY keyboard is actually pretty usable and has a soft-touch rubberized finish. We’ve been told the keyboard design isn’t final on this unit, thus the two no-shows.
• Have we mentioned this phone flies? It’s the Android device to beat, and easily the most impressive. From what we’ve been told, Google had a direct hand in the Motorola Droid. Something to the point of almost dictating every move Motorola made when designing and making the phone. Interesting, huh?
• There’s a desktop cradle/charger that will ship with the Motorola Droid that we’ve been playing around with. It turns your Droid into a “multimedia station” and displays local weather, the time, etc.
• No one wants to listen, but it makes the CLIQ looks like a child’s toy (partly because it is, and partly because the Droid, even in its non-final form, is the most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone. It’s positively amazing).

Ok, enough of that — enjoy the photos! We’ll put together a nice little review soon.

Click on over to our Motorola Droid hands on gallery!

We just got a link to Verizon’s new campaign directly aimed at the iPhone, and boy is it awesome. Everything the iPhone doesn’t, the Droid does, huh? Hit the link for some more shots of the ad!

Thanks, ffcsquall24

UPDATE: Our faithful commenters seem to have deciphered the countdown and it appears to be counting down to October 30th. Hmm, where have we heard that date before?

Read

We hope you Android lovers out there are sitting down, because we’re about to knock your socks off. Android 2.0 hasn’t been released, announced, or even pictured. Until now. And we’re doing it like we’re doing it for TV — major screenshots and major information right here, just for you, our beloved readers.

Android 2.0 looks to be a major improvement in Google’s mobile OS and we couldn’t be more excited about it. From native Exchange support to native Facebook support (it will sync with your contacts), browser improvements, a completely updated Maps application, unified email Inbox — there’s much, much more — and a brand new UI makeover, version 2.0 starts to make Android a really viable (and interesting) platform. Bounce over the jump for all the screenshots and our walkthrough!

Please note: this isn’t the final build of Android 2.0 and the follow reporting is based on the version we have running. Things can and will change prior to release.

Microsoft Exchange compatibility looks to be built-in to the OS now, and the new unified Inbox is perfect for keeping up with your personal and corporate email. You can star (flag for the corporate world) emails, mark multiple as read or unread, delete, forward — whatever you want basically. Emails load effortlessly. Unfortunately (or not so unfortunately) the unified Inbox won’t work with your Gmail account as that uses the specific Google-made Gmail email application in Android.

Maps has been updated to include Layers. We’d imagine this will grow over time but now you can overlay search queries, Wikipedia entries, Latitude buddies, traffic, transit lines, and even load remote My Maps where you can share and receive directions with others. Android 2.0 seems to have some multi-touch gestures built-in like two-finger tapping in Maps, that will zoom in, however, there’s no gesture to zoom out and pinching doesn’t work. © Apple.

The browser has a nice little UI makeover with a redone URL entry bar which includes a Favicon. In terms of performance, no this version we have doesn’t have Flash 10, Google keeps making strides in the browser space. It’s worlds better than anything we’ve used previously on a stock Android OS, and jumps one notch higher than HTC’s customized browser. There is not multi-touch in here as of now, but, you can double tap to zoom in and zoom out which is really all we’ve been asking for since Android 1.0. Oh and did we mention this thing flies? We’re talking ridiculously close to iPhone 3GS web page speeds.

There’s now a YouTube widget you can place directly on your homescreen and that allows for literally two-click YouTube video uploads. You hit record, the video recording app launches, you type in a title and description for your newly-recorded video, and it’s up and away.

While the settings area is roughly the same overall, there’s a lot of interesting additions in 2.0. For starters, there’s haptic feedback built-in and a brand new Accessibility option. There’s also a new option for Text-to-speech and generally with Android 2.0, you’re given more control over the settings of your phone and more opportunities to customize it based on your liking. Something completely bewildering is the fact that if you set a lock code for the phone (seriously give people a choice to use numbers or letters as the passcode), there’s no lock interval option, so each time your phone turns off (about every 30 seconds when not in use), you’re forced to enter the password again on arrival. Lame.

Car Home. What? You don’t know what that is? Ok, it’s a new application that’s meant to be used, uh, in your car. Seriously it’s actually quite nice. It’s a consolidated list of icons that help you perform things (presumably using voice commands if you’re driving). Things like doing a voice search across the internet, getting driving directions, viewing a location on a map, selecting a contact, searching through your phone, etc. It’s very cool that you can say, “map of gas stations” and that will open Google Maps and show you on the map where all the gas stations are closest to you. Not exactly new technology, but hey, we didn’t say it was. We said this was all about pushing Android forward, and it is.

The Amazon MP3 application seems to work over 3G instead of just Wi-Fi now, but whether that is something done because of Android 2.0 or just because of the carrier it’s running on, we’re not positively sure.

Contacts seem to be much more roomy and there’s some great functionality built right in. Instead of hitting the contact and then diving through it to find the contact information you need, just tap the contact’s photo. Up will spring a clean and tidy sub-menu with the pertinent information which can be clicked on. Send someone an email instantly, open up their Facebook profile, or even call them! Very cool and all great things that we love seeing.

Things like the music application and gallery application don’t look to have changed too much, if at all. There also looks to be some more flexibility when defining homescreen shortcuts and things of that nature.

That’s all we have for you today, guys. What do you think of Android 2.0 in its not-final version? We’re loving it. And it could help that it’s running on a pretty bad ass piece of machinery, but hey, that’s for another day.

More coming soon.

We just got a heads up from one of our Northern connects that has to do with Bell, and let’s just say we think Bell subscribers are going to be thrilled with what we have to report. How does Bell’s entire lineup of devices for their HSPA network launch sound? We also grabbed pricing for y’all, too! The following prices are prices with 36 month contracts following by full retail pricing.

Thanks, J!

LG Xenon: $89.95, $289.95

Samsung Impact: $79.95, $279.95

Samsung Omnia 2: $349.95, $549.95

Apple iPhone 3G 8GB $399.95, $599.95 — probably $149 after in store rebates

Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB: $499.95, $699.95 — probably $199 after in store rebates

Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB: $599.95, $799.95 — probably $299 after in store rebates

BlackBerry Bold 9000: $399.95, $599.95 — probably $149-$199 after in store rebates

BlackBerry 9700: $399.95, $599.95 — probably $249 after in store rebates

Nokia 2730: $29.95, $119.95

Nokia 6350: $49.95, $249.95

There’s also 3 Novatel HSPA data cards launching, two will be HSPA+ 21Mbps compatible and one will be HSPA 7.2Mbps compatible.

We were sent in some snaps of the Motorola Sholes / Droid / Your face, and although they’re not full resolution, it’s still better than nothing, eh? We’ve been told from a separate source that the ROM on the phone is moving at break-neck speed with new builds almost daily. Maybe in time for that October 30th launch?

P.S. Do you think the Motorola Sholes will be a Verizon World Edition handset?

Thanks, Chuck!

It seems as if those lovely now almost yearly launch parties are going to start happening pretty soon. T-Mobile has started sending out various invites to corporate customers (we’ve been sent two completely different-looking invites from two different connects) all describing a mythical new BlackBerry with Wi-Fi-enabled calling. Whatever could it be? The events we’re hearing about are on November 5th in NYC and we’ve been told that people attending will be taking home brand new BlackBerry 9700s. And they get breakfast, but no one cares about that.

UPDATE: We’ve been told the Los Angeles market launch event is on November 3rd.

Thanks FrankenBerry!

Uh oh. We’re slowly moving across the board here… First with a rumored T-Mobile launch date, now we have a Rogers one for you guys. One of our Northern connects just let us know that Rogers’ BlackBerry 9700 launch is currently pegged for October 26th. We don’t have pricing information, but imagine it will run around $299 with a three-year agreement. Not confirmed, of course, but hey, besides Christmas not much is.

Look, we’ll be completely upfront like we always are: this is not confirmed. Since that’s out of the way, one of our new connects (whom we have reason to trust) has informed us that T-Mobile USA is gearing up to launch the BlackBerry 9700 on November 11th. Engadget’s announcement dates make sense, as does this launch date. If it all pans out you’ll be hearing about the BlackBerry 9700 for AT&T and T-Mobile come October 21st, and on November 11th, you’ll be able to mosey on down to your local T-Mobile shop and actually buy one for yourself. Or you can wait until you win a whole heap of them from BGR. Huh? We didn’t say anything…

Thanks, Carlo!

• 512MHz CPU
• 2 megapixel camera, fixed focus, no flash
• 320×240 display
• 256MB of RAM
• 3.5mm headset jack
• QWERTY keyboard
• Trackpad
• Wi-Fi with UMA
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE

In terms of pricing and availability, the BlackBerry 8520 is available starting tomorrow, October 8th, for $99 on a three-year agreement with minimum combined service fees of $45/mo or more.

Well, well, well. Look what we’ve just got our hands on… One of our Northern ninjas has hit us with full pricing and specifications for Sony’s VAIO X Series line of notebooks (these are meant for the Canadian market but give us a good ballpark). We’ve been told it will be announced sometime tomorrow, but hey, you know how we roll.

The Sony VAIO X Series is being billed as the “world’s lightest notebook,” we’ve been told and it’s due in part to its carbon-fiber chassis. It weighs 1.6 pounds and is just over half an inch thin. There’s a 16:9 aspect ratio display that clocks in at 11.1″ that features some nice LED backlighted action. Our ninja tells us that the notebook will come with standard and “super-extended” batteries with the standard battery providing around 3.5 hours of battery life and the “super-extended” battery lasting up to 14 hours! The touchpad of the notebook features multi-touch functionality letting you flick through photos, rotate items, zoom in and out, and scroll both directions right from the touchpad.

Lastly, the X Series ships with a SSD drive and Windows 7 Home Premium. Oh, pricing! How does $1,499 sound? It will be available in Canada starting next month and we’d assume U.S. availability will be at the same time or before.

P.S. We didn’t get an answer from our guy on what CPU is in there, bummer!

We just got a tip that the phone pictured in Eric Schmidt’s hands is actually Verizon’s version of the HTC Hero and it will be called the HTC Hero (not confirmed). As you can see, there’s a couple hardware modifications and one big one is that the buttons below the screen are, as we’re told, not physical, but touch-sensitive buttons. Look for it to drop in November on Big Red.

UPDATE: We’ve doubled confirmed this — check for the HTC Hero (or a different name) in November on Verizon! P.S. We have been told “It’s awesome.”

AT&T officially said sometime in the “coming weeks” as far as the Tilt 2 release date was concerned, but we’ve got that translated out for you — October 8th. Since we also got our hands on the internal training document (it’s dated October 2nd, so it’s very recent), we screencapped a couple slides for informational purposes. There are nice comparisons against the AT&T Pure as well as one on troubleshooting when the device crashes. Yeah.

Before you get too excited, sometimes Best Buy simply inputs incorrect dates into their systems when loading SKUs. What is incredibly interesting, besides the fact they’ve gone through the trouble to conceal these product names, is that in our leaked Holiday Playbook, Best Buy mentioned that October 25th would be a “key date for handsets entering our assortment.” Sounds pretty nice, right? We’ve been told the price range for the five handsets in here (full retail Best Buy pricing) is $249-$599. Five models though? We’d say BlackBerry 8520 in white, BlackBerry Storm 2, BlackBerry 9700, BlackBerry Bold in white, and maybe BlackBerry Curve 2 for Verizon, but this shows that all of them are for AT&T? Larger shot after the break!

Thanks, Jon!

UPDATE: As one of our commenters points out, SKU 65057 shows in AT&T’s systems as the Nokia 6350 and the 65050 shows as the Garmin Nuvifone.

Sorry, but we couldn’t help posting this… We’ve received a screenshot of a Verizon Wireless calendar that shows in addition to marketing and merchandising dates, a Motorola Sholes target date of October 30th. If you notice the HTC Imagio date on the calendar, it correctly depicts the proper launch day for the handset, leading us to believe this is pretty accurate and recent. Thoughts? Bigger shot after the jump.

Thanks, J Bird!

If you’ve been wondering whether the Motorola Droid (or Tao, or Sholes — whatever), BlackBerry Storm 2, BlackBerry Curve 2 or LG Chocolate Touch would be hitting Sam’s Club stores or even TARGET, you’re in luck. We just scored an internal document outlining merchandising, training, locations, and pretty much everything else you’d need to know. While Sam’s Club appears to be set up to carry the Motorola Android handset, TARGET seems to be left out. We won’t bore you with some of the more technical stuff, though. Here’s a shot of the Motorola Droid looking pretty fly in an all black everything outfit. There actually looks to possibly be a front-facing camera on the phone. It seems to corroborate our earlier report of some cool face recognition action, or it could just simply be the European variant. There’s placeholders for the LG Chocolate Touch, BlackBerry Storm 2 and Curve 2 in here, and we might have a little bit of copyright infringement on our hands, folks. That’s our BlackBerry Tour image nestled in between some other Verizon handsets. One more slide after the break.

Thanks, J Bird!

We were lucky enough to get our hands on Best Buy Mobile’s entire Holiday Playbook and after combing through it, there’s a couple little nice nuggets of information. Really more confirmations than anything else, but hey, we aren’t ones to turn down info. Before we get to handsets specifically, it seems Best Buy has some pretty hard statistics on sales opportunities — check this out:

• The average store sees over 64,000 customers during October and November
• Out of those customers, only 1% receive an upgrade eligibility check on their accounts
• Of the 1% who get upgrade checks, around 30% are actually eligible for upgrades
• If stores increase the amount of customers checked to 2% from 1%, Best Buy Mobile would see an increase in revenue of around $20,000 for those two months, just off upgrading individuals
• After customers upgrade their handsets at Best Buy Mobile, around 16% of them come back and make other purchases later

They’ve really got it locked down, huh? Smart, smart, smart. Hit the break for some other juicy information we gathered!

In terms of hot upcoming products from now until the end of the year, here’s what Best Buy Mobile is pitching their sales staff to be ready for:

• Nokia Booklet netbook — October 25th launch, and can be activated on AT&T
• Sprint HTC Hero — launching October 11th with a presale going on now
• Sprint Palm Pixi — launch date TBD
• Verizon Storm II — launch date TBD
• Verizon Android device — launch date TBD
• T-Mobile CLIQ — launch date TBD (but we obviously know it’s shipping after October 19th up until general release November 2nd)
• “New BlackBerry devices across multiple carriers” — launch date TBD
• There will be a “host of devices launch in late October and November for all carriers.” Multiple Android launches across multiple carriers and “new technology which doesn’t exist today.”

The rest of the playbook just outlines what stores should do for key dates and Holiday sales planning, other merchandising information and what not.

You guys might have heard that we’ve (Beejive and BGR) been plugging away at TweetGenius behind the scenes since we announced our initial partnership. The entire program has been redone from the ground up and there’s literally too many fantastic changes and new features to list, but we’ll try and give you a taste of some:

• Innovative direct-from-application Twitpic photo uploading
• Inline image viewing for Twitpic, Twitgoo, img.ly, TweetPhoto, yfrog images
• GPS location posting
• Themes: comes with two different themes for viewing tweets. More are coming soon!
• Shortcut icons (reply, retweet, direct message)
• Status bar to show you necessary information like time, signal status, etc

Those are just a couple examples of what’s been changed, but what you’ll find is that the program is incredibly quick and gives users a desktop-class Twitter experience. We’re happy to announce that as a special thank you to all our original customers, TweetGenius v1.0.9 will be exclusively available to them for a period of two weeks before our worldwide launch. And, it’s available immediately for download. Hit the break for some screenshots and the download link!

Read [TweetGenius download link for existing TweetGenius customers, OTA and Desktop-based installations]

Read [TweetGenius signup page to be notified when TweetGenius is available for purchase]