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The XPERIA X1, another long awaited handset, will be available here in the US very shortly.  That’s right, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 will make a US debut on Black Friday (November 28), but sadly it will not be coming with any of the typical Black Friday savings that we have come to expect.  Instead it will be retailing for $799.99, that is, of course, as an unlocked handset.

As for features, the XPERIA X1 has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard along with a 3-inch display, a 3.2-megapixel camera with auto-focus, a microSD card slot, A2DP, Wi-Fi and GPS.  Additionally the X1 will come loaded with Microsoft Office Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile, Opera 9.5, Windows Media Player Mobile and will be running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.

So, if you are looking to make a purchase, November 28 will be the day, it can be found directly through Sony Electronics.

Via [unwired view]

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After plenty of rumors, hope and speculation, the official details for the BlackBerry Storm have been announced.  The Storm will be priced at $199.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate and along with a two-year agreement.  As for availability, November 21 will be the day when it will be both online and in stores.

The Storm, as noted in the short and to the point, press release will be the “first touch screen BlackBerry smartphone with the world’s first “‘clickable’ touch screen.“  Which despite the price not coming in quite as low as we would have hoped for, (lower than the iPhone 3G) should still be low enough to sell more than a few.

A few interesting tidbits from the Verizon Wireless announcement show that the Storm will be running software version 4.7, that it will be shipping with an 8GB microSD card and also that it will be able to function as a wireless modem for your notebook.  Of course, Verizon does not specify the extra cost for the tethering, simply stating that the Storm has “3G modem support.“

Keep reading to check out the full (and short) press release below…

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Some poking around on the scavenger hunt website for the Verizon BlackBerry Storm has revealed some interesting pricing info.  According to some of the fine print, you know the stuff that most people ignore, the listed average retail value (ARV) of the Storm is $499.  Of course, those willing to sign that two-year agreement can expect to see a nice drop from that price.

As of now, it looks like Verizon is still on track for a November 16 release.  However, we are still awaiting the official confirmation from Verizon.  That date does fit in nicely with the ending of the scavenger hunt contest which wraps up on November 15.

Via [RIMarkable]

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After what seemed like it would be an endless delay, AT&T and RIM have officially announced the upcoming availability of the BlackBerry Bold.  It almost seems strange to be able to post this, but those looking to score a Bold will not have much longer to wait, the Bold will be available beginning November 4, 2008.

As for pricing, the Bold will be “as low as” $299.99, which means that in order to see that price you should be willing to sign that two-year agreement as well.

Finally, just to refresh our memory, the Bold will feature a half-VGA 480 x 320 display as well as 3G, Wi-Fi, built-in GPS, a 2-megapixel camera with flash, zoom and video recording and 1GB of internal memory with a microSD card slot that supports up to 16GB of additional storage.  Nothing left to do now, except maybe mark your calendar and hope that any last minute delays stay away.

Read [PR Newswire]

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HTC has announced the successor to the HTC Touch, and although the recently rumored HTC Opal was pretty close on specs and design, the handset has officially been dubbed the HTC Viva.

Overall the Viva is a decent handset, that according to HTC will be affordable, of course a price has not yet been announced, so time will tell just how accurate that statement will prove to be. Otherwise the HTC Viva will feature HTC’s TouchFLO and be running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. 

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Thankfully we can now put all these rumors and leaks behind us as RIM has let loose with official announcement for their first flip phone, of course we are referring to the BlackBerry Pearl 8220. Yup, those rumors were correct, the Kickstart will officially be called the BlackBerry Pearl 8220.

Spec wise the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 will feature a 320 x 240 internal display, 128 x 160 external display, 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, large SureType keypad, 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD/SDHC card slot. It will be running OS 4.6, have an HTML browser and an enhanced media player. Additionally the Pearl 8220 will be available in red or black.

Overall the rumors seem to have been pretty accurate with the specs, which means we do not really have much information that has not been mentioned so far. We were already expected it to be exclusive with T-Mobile so again no surprise with the carrier, however RIM or T-Mobile have not yet announced any pricing or a specific release date, simply stating that it will be available “this fall.“ I guess we will have to wait a bit longer for that information.

I suppose keeping the Pearl name makes sense, but personally I thought Kickstart had a really nice sound to it. Overall it looks like a nice improvement to the current candybar style Pearl, of course the one bug question remains is that pricing.

Keep reading to check out the full release…

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Dell’s long awaited entry into the netbook market has finally been made official, and based on the leaks it seems that it comes with little surprise, both in terms of pricing but also overall specs. The netbook has been officially dubbed the Inspiron Mini 9 and its available today with an estimated shipping date of September 16.

The Mini 9 offers a few configurations and will be available in either Obsidian Black or Alpine White, of course the Alpine White comes as a $25 premium. In addition to the outside coloring, the netbook will also offer a choice between Windows XP or Ubuntu 8.04 with a “custom Dell interface.“

The specs inside the Mini 9 are about the same as what we have been hearing around the Internet and include an 8.9-inch display with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950, Wi-Fi 802.11g and a 4-cell battery.

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It was a launch that at times seemed like it was never going to happen, and now that it has officially been confirmed by Rogers, potential customers have just about 24 hours left to wait before they are able to purchase a BlackBerry Bold of their own.

Sadly Rogers has not released any pricing details, I guess they are intent on making everyone wait to the very last minute for everything. However, according to RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie it will be priced between $300 and $400 and will be aimed at business users, which seems to fit in nicely with the rumored price of $399. Of course, I can imagine most potential customers are hoping it will come in a little less expensive, possibly something a little closer to the pricing of the 16GB iPhone.

Now we just have to wait for AT&T to finally gets things in order and release the Bold for the rest of us here in the US, which hopefully will not be that much longer.

Read [Reuters]

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Palm, once again has announced the Treo Pro, of course it seems this time it was made official, as they have released a press release, promo video and also added the newly designed Treo to their website.

This release is actually pretty exciting for a Treo, not only does the Pro have a nice clean design and decent features it will also be sold unlocked for $549 here in the US. Palm has yet to announce a specific date of release, however they have stated it will hit the market in September. Aside from the US, the Treo Pro will also be available through Vodafone and O2 in Europe and through Telstra in Australia.

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This does not come as a huge surprise, after all we have seen many recent reports with the same timeline, but its still nice to have some official confirmation.

While they still are not offering up a specific launch date, T-Mobile has confirmed that the first Android powered phone would be available “before Christmas” but may come as early as October. They also mentioned that the handset would be coming from HTC, and although they did not confirm a specific model, it is believed to be the HTC Dream, and it will feature both a full touchscreen along with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

At this point we can only hope that the Android powered Dream lands closer to the October end of the time frame, if nothing else the earlier launch would make perfect sense to make sure the fully benefit from the holiday shopping season.

Read [Yahoo! News]

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