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RIM has officially announced the new BlackBerry Bold (previously the BlackBerry 9000. True to its name, RIM is announcing it in a bold manner, complete with a product site of its own. And since it bears the BlackBerry brand, we don’t have to tell you how sleek and cool looking this new BlackBerry model is, right? But just in case you have no idea how uber cool this BlackBerry Bold is, it has a lustrous black exterior, satin chrome finished frame and stylish leather-like blackplate.

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Does the keypad lock on your phone annoy you? Well, you just might think different after you hear this. A soldier in Afghanistan accidentally called his parents while he was in the middle of a heated battle. The result was a terrifying voicemail that included the son yelling about needing more ammo and his gun having problems-and cutting off just as another soldier yelled “INCOMING!” His parents were understandably shaken but managed to get a hold of their embarrassed son, who assured them he was okay. Thank goodness there was a happy ending, but am I the only one wondering which provider offers battlefield coverage? Talk about great cell coverage! We also have to mention the thanks that should go out to the soldier, hopefully his next call will be a little less stressful for those at home. Keep reading to listen to the chilling call…

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Sony Ericsson recently had not one, but two new handsets hit the FCC’s approval list. The lucky phones are the R300 Radio and the C902 Cyber-shot.

The R300 Radio is the less exciting of the two, and is aimed more at developing nations. This handset will be more on the basic side with a 1.8-inch color display, VGA camera, as well as a built-in AM and FM radio. The R300 will also feature Sony Ericsson’s TrackID application so users will be able to record small portions of music and be able to get the details such as artist, track and album names.

The C902 is a little more on the exciting side, its still a basic looking candybar style phone, however it will offer a 5-megapixel camera that has facial recognition and auto-focus. In addition the C902 will offer quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and ActiveSync support as well as feature a MemoryStick Micro card slot and Nokia’s task switcher button for all of you multi-taskers.

As usual with FCC related information, its always unclear when or even if we will see them landing here in the US, but as always we here at Gadgetell will keep you up to date.

Via [IntoMobile]

While this sounds like just about as strange a name that Nokia could come up with, the rumor train has dubbed the iPhone look-a-like the iPerformer. Personally I am thinking this one has to be false, having an iPhone competitor named the iPerformer sounds like they are just asking for trouble.

This handset has been a long time in the making, the pic alone is courtesy of an image from the GoPlay event that was held back in August of 2007. Along with the vague rumor of a name, the images are just not available and the known specs are just as elusive. The iPerformer, as we can tell from the picture feature a widescreen display, which appears by the lack of buttons to be touchscreen based. It is also rumored to feature NaviScroll, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a QWERTY keyboard as well as an FM radio and FM transmitter.

Just as light as the rest of the details, the price and any possible release date are still a mystery. Wow, such a cool looking and potentially promising phone that we first saw about 9 months ago, with so few details.

Via [Engadget Mobile]

The latest, but still rumored information is now putting the soon-to-be-released BlackBerry 9000 with an official name, the BOLD. According to the folks over at CrackBerry this “appears with *reasonable* certainty that this is in fact the case” however without an official announcement we are still not 100% convinced. Either way it should not be long now before we see the 9000 BOLD officially announced and its fair to say we will also learn the name at that time. More important though is that the BOLD, whether or not that is the true name, is going to be a very nice addition to the current BlackBerry lineup. Here’s hoping that announcement comes as expected on Monday.

Via [CrackBerry]

It turns out that AT&T is making an attempt at keeping their free Wi-Fi offering a secret. Even though its long past the secret part, thanks to the appearance and disappearance act that is has been putting on recently. According to a statement from AT&T they offered up an official “no comment” about the situation, but they also stated that the issues that have come up were nothing more than “human error.” Which based on that it would be pretty safe to say that its just a matter of time before it goes live for real, until then we can only hope the same human that has been making those errors will continue, we love our free Wi-Fi.

Read [New York Times] Via [Gizmodo]

Originally announced back in February during the Mobile World Conference 2008, Samsung has now officially announced the release date for the rather slim and candybar-shaped i200 smartphone. Measuring 11.8mm thick, the phone is slated for a European launch in June, while other markets will get their hands on the phone in July. The compact, yet stylish, i200 will sport Windows Mobile 6.1, a glossy 2.3-inch QVGA screen, 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, music player, microSD slot and will support Microsoft Office applications (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook). The phone will also support HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), though sadly, there is no Wi-Fi support. Samsung is touting the phone’s “light sensor” which automatically detects the amount of light available and varies the LCD and keypad’s brightness accordingly, saving battery life. Unfortunately, no pricing information was released.

Read [ZDNet Korea]

As if we have not yet seen enough of all these new touchscreen phones that have been jumping out of the woodwork lately, here comes yet another, featuring the same old touchscreen, and almost the same specifications as well. Although this time, it could have one thing that separates it from the myriad of other touchscreen phones out there - herculean battery life. That’s because this new touchscreen phone falls under the Philips Xenium brand, which, in case you don’t know, has a reputation for churning out gadgets with incredibly long-lasting batteries. And knowing that this same company completed its very own touchscreen phone (Philips Xenium 9@9v) a couple of months back, this new rumor becomes quite believable. But until the day that we see it get official, that’s all that it is: a faceless rumor.

Via [Unwired View]

In what seems like its becoming a tradition recently, with releasing live images of unreleased Sony Ericsson handsets on a one at a time basis. Anyway the latest leaked image is of the BeiBei, and it gives us a nice clear shot of the backside. While the BeiBei was previously rumored to have a 5.0-megapixel webcam, after seeing this latest image I am not 100% convinced of that. While a little hard to make out, the megapixels are listed just above the lens and looks like its a 3.2-megapixel. Overall the BeiBei looks like a nice phone, but the stylus makes me reconsider the coolness factor. Keep reading for another image of the frontside, just in case you wanted a refresher…

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An honest and innocent letter sent out as an invitation for application developers has turned out to be the main source of our primary info on two possibly upcoming Palm devices - the Palm Zeppelin and the Skywriter. Nothing about the specs, availability, and pricing of these new phones have been made clear so far, other than the fact that Palm is currently looking for software developers for it. The invitation letter was sent to smartphone blog TamsPPC, who later did a rendering of the Skywriter, which they say could be a Palm 500-style device running on Windows Mobile 6.1. It is also suggested that these new phones might be released by Q3 2008. I know it seems pretty far-fetched but go ahead read a copy of the e-mail for yourself.

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