We’ll get right to the point on this one. One of our sources notified us last night that as of 6:00 PM EST yesterday, the BlackBerry Bold has officially received Technical Acceptance from Big Blue, meaning the handset has been approved for sale by the phone gods of AT&T. Typically, TA means the handset is about two weeks from launching but we had our fingers crossed that AT&T would somehow be fast-tracking the release since the Bold has already been delayed so many times. Unfortunately it doesn’t look that that will be the case. Word is coming in now that AT&T has officially stated on this morning’s earnings call, that the Bold will be released on November 4th. We still have it on pretty good authority that October 27th was intended to be the date - looks like AT&T and RIM just had to keep the tradition of delays alive one last time before launch.
UPDATE: This just in - $300 price point yall! (Thanks Carlos)
As part of the whole discussion on the leaked Nokia promotional video about a month ago, the existence of the mysterious Eseries phone, the E63, has come to light. Much of the phone still remains a mystery but we do have some new spy shots to confirm its existence and few leaked details on the handset itself courtesy of the Telefon-Tredd.de forums. This is all rumor so take it with a healthy grain of salt. The Nokia E63 is purported to come in three variants: the E63-1: for Europe, the E63-2: without a camera and more memory (?), and E63-3: for the Americas. According to a user agent profile on Nokia servers and from the spy shooter himself, the E63 will have the following specs:
- GSM and GPRS + EDGE
- UMTS + HSDPA
- Display: 240 x 320 Pixel, 18bit
- Camera: At least 2MP. No Front Camera.
- WLAN
- Bluetooth
- Symbian v9.1
- S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1
- MIDP 2.0 and CLDC 1.1
- Has 3.5 mm jack connector
- Is thicker than E71
- Has a flashlight function (which by pressing the space bar immediately activated and can be disabled)
- No metal construction (plastic only) except Navikey and camera module
- No side buttons
- Left side: microSD slot and micro-USB connector (with hard plastic closure)
- The microphone is on the lower side (not front as E71)
- 2mm mains next to the microphone
- Bottom right (on the corner) is an eyelet
- Menu’s like E71, looks like FP1
So there you have it folks, the Nokia E63 as we know it today. Hit the jump for a few more spy shots.
[via Finest Fones]
Read (translated)
After being sued this past summer along with Verizon for early termination fees, Sprint has finally decided to prorate them or make a tiered ETF policy. Much like other carriers, the initial fee goes down in cost as your contract matures. Pretty smart move after losing about $73 billion in settlement fees for the class action lawsuit filed against Sprint in California. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse says that its ETF will be lowered as soon as December when “billing software” is updated and ready. As we all know, the reason for ETFs is the carriers say it helps recover cost of subsidized devices. That’s kinda true, but what if you’re already a year or more into your contract and you have to pay $200 to bail out? Making a tiered system is a better idea. Sprint is late to the party but better than never.
Not bashing them… just wondering, really. Didn’t they announce the MySpace application release would coincide with the release of the T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220? Anyone care?
RIM announced on Tuesday their new Web Signals technology that lets content providers push relevant and timely alerts directly to your Blackberry. Like SMS alerts on steroids, the new Web Signals will alert Blackberry users of the latest news, weather, sports, entertainment, financial information, etc. You won’t get plain old 160 character text alerts sent out en masse at regular intervals; the new Blackberry alerts will be automatically generated when new content is published and will provide one-click access to the associated online content. Can you see the content providers jumping for joy as they envision large increases in site traffic? Oh, yeah. Can you also see Blackberry users sinking under a deluge of push content? Nah, we didn’t think so either. Berryheads love their push content! At launch, RIM has Canada’s CBCNews, Thumbplay, Dada Entertainment, and The Washington Post on board and ready to launch their Web Signals powered alert services. Hey Blackberry users, let’s crank it up a notch and get on with some serious pushing!
