Boy Genius Report

Verizon now selling the BlackBerry Curve 8530

by Michael Bettiol on November 20th, 2009 at 8:46pm
Filed under: BlackBerry, BlackBerry OS, CDMA, EV-DO, Handsets, RIM, Retail, Verizon 49 Comments

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?

Wirefly’s Black Friday specials revealed

by Michael Bettiol on November 20th, 2009 at 5:25pm
Filed under: AT&T, Android, BlackBerry, BlackBerry OS, Handsets, RIM, Retail, Samsung, Sprint, Verizon 24 Comments

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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Motorola DROID giveaway: Part 1

by Boy Genius on November 20th, 2009 at 3:20pm
Filed under: Android, Featured, Handsets, Motorola 115 Comments

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!

Inside a WIND Mobile retail store

by Michael Bettiol on November 20th, 2009 at 1:15pm
Filed under: Retail, WIND 27 Comments

While WIND Mobile might never launch thanks to parent company Globalive’s illegal ownership structure, that didn’t stop its CEO Ken Campbell and his entourage from celebrating the completed renovation of one of its retail stores. It’s a departure from the typical Bell, Rogers or TELUS location to say the least. BG thinks it looks like a “New York subway car in white lacquer” and Andrew said it’s nothing but an “Apple store with mahogany”, so naturally we’re curious to know what you think. So hit the jump, check out the pics and give us your thoughts!

BlackBerry Pearl 9100 gets pawed

by Andrew Munchbach on November 20th, 2009 at 11:14am
Filed under: BlackBerry, BlackBerry OS, Handsets, Hardware, RIM 48 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.

Motorola Motus coming to AT&T? Full specifications

by Boy Genius on November 20th, 2009 at 9:38am
Filed under: AT&T, Android, Breaking News, EDGE, Exclusives, Featured, GPRS, GSM, HSDPA, Handsets, Motorola, Rumors, UMTS 28 Comments

motorola-motus

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.!

Virgin Mobile Canada to carry iPhone 3G, 3GS

by Andrew Munchbach on November 20th, 2009 at 6:41am
Filed under: Apple, Carriers - Canadian 29 Comments

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.

OS update now available for Verizon Tours

by Michael Bettiol on November 19th, 2009 at 7:00pm
Filed under: BlackBerry, BlackBerry OS, RIM, Software, Verizon 39 Comments

blackberrytourreview1

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).

Ultra-blurry photo rumored to be Motorola Motus

by Marc Flores on November 19th, 2009 at 5:04pm
Filed under: Android, Handsets, Motorola, Rumors 51 Comments

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!

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 aims high at $879, available Q1 2010

by Marc Flores on November 19th, 2009 at 4:05pm
Filed under: Android, HSDPA, News, Retail, Sony Ericsson 52 Comments

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.

Google Chrome OS: speed, simplicity, security

by Andrew Munchbach on November 19th, 2009 at 3:01pm
Filed under: Netbooks, Software 54 Comments

Screen shot 2009-11-19 at 1.31.58 PM

Well kids, Google has just released some serious information about the much anticipated Chrome OS at today’s webcast, so grab some popcorn and buckle up, ’cause here we go. Google Chrome OS has a radically different approach to computing, and assumes that most of what you want to do on your computer involves your web browser and internet connectivity — and when we think about it, are they so wrong? Those of you who were expecting an Android type interface are going to be sorely disappointed, as the Chrome browser, in a nutshell, is Chrome OS. So let’s just get this out there right now: this isn’t going to be an OS designed for video editing, Photoshopping, or 3D modeling. This is a lightweight conduit for access to online information and utilities. No doubt all of this has piqued your interest, so hit the jump to check out the full story.

Verizon cuts ex-Alltel employees, offers small consolation

by Marc Flores on November 19th, 2009 at 2:29pm
Filed under: Alltel, News, Verizon 64 Comments

It looks like Verizon has finally figured out what it’s going to do with the Alltel employees that it picked up during its acquisition of the company: give them the axe. More specifically, Verizon is cutting an unspecified number of jobs in Little Rock because those corporate positions are now redundant. The departments being given the axe include finance, marketing and legal, but there is some hope for those losing their jobs — Verizon would be more than happy to have them apply for positions in its call centers. We’re not sure if being asked to step down from finance to handle customer complaints over the phone is a nice offer, but having a job is better than no job, right?

Toys ‘R Us Black Friday game deals released

by Andrew Munchbach on November 19th, 2009 at 12:03pm
Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 13 Comments

I don’t want to grow up, but even if I did, I still would be a…can you hear it in your head now? Good. Toys R Us has released a few of their steals and deals for the fast approaching Black Friday, and some of them aren’t half bad. TRU will be offering a BOGOHO (buy one get one half off) sale on all PSP and DS games, The Beatles: Rock Band will be $49.99, and The Beatles: Rock Band “Special Value addition” will set you back $134.99. We’re not exactly sure what Toys R Us is trying to tell us with this next set of deals but all Xbox 360 and Wii hardware purchases will include a $15 gift card for Subway, Wendy’s, or Cold Stone Creamery — why not just include a free bottle of replacement bong water — also, “select games” will include a $25 iTunes gift card. The BOGOHO and Beatles offerings are good online or in-stores but the free gift cards are an in-store deal only. So what’s the verdict? Anyone going to head out to Toys R Us at 5am on the 27th to rub elbows with soccer mom’s trying to get a Tickle Me Elmo for these deals?