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Sprint set to serve up BlackBerry Pearl 2 around Thanksgiving?
Boy Genius has heard that the much anticipated -- and terribly named -- BlackBerry Pearl 2 may well be dressed out in shops sometime around or during Thanksgiving weekend. Word also has that GPS is a go, but as we mentioned, WiFi is not, yet again proving the old adage that 'you can't have it all' -- though somehow, the TyTN 2 has it all. Of course, we'll be following this one closely so be sure to pop in when you have a spare moment -- or while you're stuffing face with turkey on said weekend -- for updates.[Thanks, Greg]
Sprint BlackBerry Pearl to support Sprint TV?
It appears that Sprint has let the bag again and allowing some clever readers to comb through the same spec sheet. It looks like Sprint will launch the BlackBerry 8130 supporting both their Mobile TV and Music Store services. Nothing sounds more enticing than streaming audio and video via EV-DO on our BlackBerry. Now only if Sprint can get their mobile TV offerings in line with VCAST TV or maybe Verizon will follow suit and enable another Smartphone for their music service.[Via Boy Genius Report]
T-Mobile busts out bunch of Pearl colors
In the event that neither black nor white were to your liking, T-Mobile is now delighted to offer you three more colors of the BlackBerry Pearl from which to choose: blue, "Sunset," and "Pale Gold." The only problem? It's the same old Pearl, not the Pearl 2 everyone's salivating over. Whatever, though, we guess it'll be cool to flash this to your RIM fanboy and fangirl friends for the next few weeks while we wait for the next generation to come around. Get 'em now for the same $150 on contract as the originals.[Via Boy Genius Report]
Sprint's Q4 lineup: Rumor, Centro, Touch, and Pearl 8130
What started as a trickle of unofficially official shots from Sprint's Q4 pipeline has suddenly become a deluge. Check the LG Rumor, Touch (aka, Vogue), and Blackberry Pearl 8130 all dressed up with Sprint logos and sales-goon positioning points for a Q4 launch. We already saw Palm's Centro, OQO Model 02, LG Rumor and Touch yucking it up in the wild this morning but this is the first time we've seen the 8130 in Sprint, not Verizon attire. The 8130 sports a GPS receiver but no WiFi like we saw in those RIM slides last month yet still packs all the rest of the EV-DO niceties you'd expect. The Touch is EV-DO revision A upgradeable like we heard while the LG Rumor does its QWERTY thing for the non-Pro crowd. See for yourself in the gallery below.%Gallery-7262%[Thanks, Stephen]
BlackBerry Pearl 2 in the wild
If you're trying to figure out what's different here from the original... well, first of all, you're probably not a Pearl owner, and second, most of the fun stuff is under the hood. Pinstack has scored a plethora of high quality shots detailing the GSM / WiFi variant of the Pearl 2, OS 4.3 and all. As we'd heard before, the presence of WiFi excludes the presence of GPS here and it'll be up to carriers to decide which model to carry -- an especially tough decision considering that there's no 3G radio. Most of the Pearl 2's rumored improvements are in full display in this gallery, too: the 3.5mm headphone jack, external microSD slot, moderately improved keypad, and a fresh coat of paint. Hit the Pinstack link for the remainder of the visual stimulation.
Sprint event showcases CDMA Touch, LG Rumor, and more
If you've been patiently awaiting details about, well, a whole slew of handsets, chances are that a recent Sprint event held the answers to a-many of those very questions. First up was the Palm Centro (also coined Gandolf and Treo 800), which you've already seen plenty of earlier today. Moving on, the Sprint Touch (read: CDMA) was said to be rockin' a potent 400MHz CPU, and it also touted EV-DO, 128MB of RAM, a two-megapixel camera, built-in GPS "to be activated in a Rev A upgrade," and a likely launch date in November. Furthermore, an EV-DO BlackBerry Pearl was on display along with a "petite candybar" from Sanyo, the sliding LG Rumor, and the Sprint Airave home cell site (once known as the Samsung Ubicell). We know you're craving the dirt on all of the aforementioned gizmos, so be sure and hit the read link for the full skinny.
To be a Pokemon Miser is your destiny
If you've been considering picking up Pokemon, now is the time to do it. Like, today. Amazon.com is offering Pokemon Pearl as their Deal of the Day, for $20. Considering that Fire Red and Leaf Green are also $20, this is a killer deal. We doubt the supply is going to hold out for the whole day (or the whole time it's taking us to write this), so ask yourself right now if you want hundreds of hours of intensely complicated role-playing in a kid-friendly package. Alternately, ask yourself just how cute you think Pikachu is: awww cute or buy stuff cute? You can consider your position re: dropping $20 on some Pokemans while we serenade you with the soothing sounds of the Pokerap.
September's bumper crop for T-Mobile to include first 3G handset?
Though we still don't have a great sense of exactly when or where T-Mobile plans to kick off its long-overdue 3G launch, the hardware is thankfully starting to materialize -- so they'll at least be ready when the time comes to flip the switch. Boy Genius Report has apparently scored some additional intel detailing the Samsung SGH-T639, a phone we saw grace the FCC not long ago (which is how we happen to know it rocks T-Mobile's particular flavor of WCDMA, 1700MHz). If this slide pans out, it looks like the T639 is a pretty unremarkable offering considering its rather remarkable place in T-Mobile history, sporting a meager one megapixel camera in an ultra-conservative flip package. It looks like it'll hit on the 10th of September, though there's no indication whether any 3G markets will light up on the same day. In other T-Mobile news, it looks like the carrier will be rereleasing the first-gen BlackBerry Pearl in three new colors on September 4 while the more interesting 8320 variant of the Curve -- WiFi and all -- hits on September 24. Finally, Motorola pulls two out of its sleeve for the month: the low end W490 clamshell and the "RAZR V3 06," which as far as we can tell, is yet another rehash of the tired RAZR V3. At any rate, kudos, T-Mobile!Read - Samsung SGH-T639Read - RIM BlackBerry Curve 8320Read - RIM BlackBerry PearlRead - Motorola RAZR V3 06, W490
RIM's new Pearls and Curves: WiFi or GPS, not both
It seems RIM's going full force with the "you can't have your cake and eat it too" rule with its new batch of devices, even though we're pretty sure we could have our cake and eat it too -- if only RIM would let us. If a slide deck over on Pinstack turns out to be legit, the next-gen Pearl and the 8300 Curve's slightly newer cousins will be available in carriers' choices of WiFi or GPS variants, but for whatever reason, never both. We're guessing RIM has some fancy explanation about battery drain or engineering issues, but whatever -- we can think of plenty of devices that do both with aplomb, so we're not too happy about the whole mess. As the Curves go, the 8310 will do GPS while the 8320 will pack the 802.11b/g action, but the devices' internals are otherwise unchanged from the original. The Pearl 2 meanwhile has a more expansive list of updates from its predecessor, stepping up to a 2 megapixel camera, an honest-to-goodness 3.5mm headphone jack, and "new firm keypad technology" (yay!) among other things. In the Pearl's case, network determines the add-on feature: GSM gets WiFI (probably to make up for the agony of EDGE) while CDMA gets GPS. Look for all of these to hit well before the year's out.
DS conquers all competitors in UK, prepares to assault mainland
The British gaming industry sales watchers at MCV are reporting today that the DS has overtaken both the PS2 and PC in unit sales and overall market value in the UK. They attribute the little portable's triumph to its strong sales since Easter, as well as bumper crop of high quality releases, including Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and More Brain Training, that currently account for over 15% of the all game sales! While sales of Apple's iPod might indicate otherwise, one has to wonder how long the DS can hold onto its worldwide domination. But by then, it'll be time for some new colors or an even sleeker form factor. Onboard flash memory, anyone?
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl sell 10 million
Diamonds and Pearls are exactly what Nintendo is swimming in, as the latest two entries in the Pokemon franchise have hit 10 million units total worldwide. Japanese consumers are responsible for 5.2 million of those sales, with the U.S. taking second place for most addicted Pokegamers. The pair of games just launched in Europe three days ago, so expect those sales figure to keep on rising.[Via DS Fanboy]
DS Daily: Caught 'em all?
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl have been out for just over two months, and we suspect that there are still plenty of you out there playing. Either you've picked your copy up after the release date (which we always do) or you're just still working on catching and training those little buggers. Pokemon is a fairly deep game despite its apparent childishness, so it can take a long time to finish (or to decide to stop playing.)So who's still playing regularly? We ask because we're slowly building up our team in anticipation of a glorious future Game Night in which we can compete in a non-awful fashion. We emphasize slowly-- it turns out that work often takes time away from leisure activities. Outrageous, we know.
Specs, details on RIM's Pearl 2 "Komet"
We don't have a picture in our hot little hands just yet, but sure enough, it looks like RIM's SureType torchbearer is getting a little (or maybe not so little) facelift in the coming months. Codnamed "Komet," the Pearl's successor allegedly gets hooked up with a whopping 3.2 megapixel camera sporting a landscape viewfinder, WiFi, an external microSD slot, and support for Windows Media. Oh, and you need some sort of listening apparatus for that Windows Media, right? Try your pick of A2DP support and a 3.5mm jack (hallelujah!). No word on when or where the Komet sees its debut, but we'll bide our time with the Curve in the meanwhile, thankyouverymuch. Click through for the full spec sheet!
Rumors: Pokemon cheaters banned from online play
So you think it's cute, trying to cheat on being a pokey-man collecta', huh? I hear you're getting your hits using these Action Replay codes with Pokemon Diamond/Pearl: National-Dex Catching All 493 Pokemon All Shiny Well, I got news for you, buddy. Word on the street (i.e. Wii60 forums) is that Nintendo is banning players who are caught using the aforementioned codes from online play. No trades, no barters, just cold isolation with yourself. My Pokeymans, let me show you them ... I can't? Oh, nuts![Via DS Fanboy]
Pokemon defeats fear of flying, gains 20 EXP
Today's Pokémon content is a sweet story of how GayGamer's Pirate Prince came to understand the appeal of the series while in desperate need of a distraction. During a long flight, he decided to play some Pearl, despite not having been much of a fan previously. It turns out that the game was an excellent distraction. In a situation where he was forced to choose between catching them all and paying attention to his claustrophobia and fear of flight, he was able to delve into the game and discover its merit.We aren't especially scared of flying, which is a surprise considering all of the things we are afraid of, we also took a plane ride this weekend, also accompanied by our Pokemans. It really is nice to have collecting and leveling to obsess about instead of the stress of being on an airplane and the stress of travel in general.
Pokemon Company CEO: Pokemon is important
Having covered some basically illicit Pokémon content, we'll turn now to more official channels-- it doesn't get more "official" than Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara. Ishihara believes that a certain franchise is going to win the "hardware war" for Nintendo. Guess which franchise? No, not Clu Clu Land. "The hardware which has Pokémon on it will be the winner," he told Gamespot. Ishihara was also down on multiplatform development, saying that not being able to design around one system's unique features stifles creativity. Amusingly (to us) Ishihara hinted that he had "ideas" for the next Pokémon games. Of course he does! We all do: they're all in the previous games. We love Pokémon, but we are willing to admit that they're pretty much all the same game.[Via Next Generation]
My Pokemon saves: Let me hack them
Pokesav is an editor program that allows you to hack your Pokemon Diamond and Pearl saves, adding rare Pokemon, changing their abilities, and doing all kinds of crazy hacky stuff. It appears that not only can you generate any Pokemon, you can then assign them abilities outside their type, and with more PP than the abilities can usually have. You need some kind of homebrew ability to do this, obviously, since you need to get your savegames onto the computer. There's even a database of downloadable Pokemon, so you can get started cheating right away. We wouldn't recommend you use ill-gotten Pokemon online, but for your own use, we don't see why you should be bound by the limitations of the game.Check after the break for a tutorial video sent to us by the Hall of Bards. Pokesav is serious business.
A look at Verizon's busy summer
Please, we beg of you, take these dates with the proverbial grain of salt -- but according to sources, the dates draws near for what could be one of the busiest phone launching quarters for The Network ever. Word on the street is that several phones should be launching shortly including UTStarcom Libra at the end of June, the Palm Treo 755p, UTStarcom Titan, Sierra Wireless 595U USB aircard, and the Motorola Q9M (aka iPhone Killer) rounding out the month of July. A few other honorable mentions we'd like to throw in for ya: looks like the Samsung I760 might be forced to downgrade to Windows Mobile 5.0 in order to make the summer launch schedule, the Treo 800W is on track for late August and BlackBerry Pearl 8120 some time in the fourth quarter of the year. Not a bad list, eh?[Thanks, Jesse and HTC Kid]
DS Daily: Is Phantom Hourglass still your most wanted?
Way back in January, we asked you what game you wanted most this year, and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass won by a ridiculous margin. Since then, we've learned more about the game, and seen more of how it looks. We also know that there are other goodies to anticipate this year. So now that we're approaching the halfway point of 2007, we thought we'd ask -- is Phantom Hourglass still your top choice, particularly now that Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are out?%Gallery-3279%
Red Pearl makes its debut on Rogers
Leave it to Rogers to sneak out another color in the BlackBerry Pearl stable without having an official announcement anywhere in sight. Since May 9, Rogers has been quietly selling the candy apple red 8120 (8100, just kidding) for $249.99 (about $230) on a (gulp!) three year contract. Now, the only question is why would RIM and Rogers release the Pearl in such a lovely shade without a ton of fanfare? Maybe they were still backlogged from other events. [Via Howard Forums]