Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Some further evidence that Palm is prepared to ride out the success of the Centro as far as it will take them, and the latest additions come in the form of a few new colors dubbed simply as “Green” and “Rose.” Both models were recently pictured (image above) over on the SprintUsers forum and offer nice clear images of what seems to be a slightly drab looking olive green along with a new shade of pink. The green, at least from the picture looks to be a nice shade, and the pink seems to be much darker than the current pink model on the market. Nothing has been stated officially, however these new shades are expected to be available late next month.

Read [SprintUsers Forum] Via [Palm InfoCenter]

The Sprint branded HTC Touch Diamond, yet another handset that seems like the release will never come with rumored date after rumored date. The latest was calling for the Touch Diamond to be released in August, but as we all know now that has already come and gone, of course a new date has come up and this time we are pretty sure its accurate.

PC Magazine is reporting that the Touch Diamond will be available on September 14 and that it will be retailing for $249.99, which comes along with a two-year agreement and after a $100 rebate, we can only hope that its an instant rebate. Either way, it sounds like a decent price, thankfully the pending release date is not that far into the future, lets just hope it sticks this time.

Read [Yahoo! News]

Sprint’s popular, new smartphone, the Samsung Instinct, is going to be sold for the first time at RadioShack coming this Labor Day Weekend. You might be thinking, what’s so special about RadioShack selling the Samsung Instinct, I could go buy it at any other retailer or the Sprint store. Well, the reason is that RadioShack will be selling the Instinct for the low price of $100 for new customers.

MORE »

Sprint has just lowered their Phone-As-Modem pricing from $50 a month all the way down to $15 a month. Sounds like you are going to see some huge savings, right? Well not so fast, because as you would expect with anything that sounds a little good to be true, there are some conditions that will apply.

To begin with you need to have a Power Vision phone with connection capabilities, which is going to limit your phone choices a bit, but that is not it. In addition to the phone, you also need to be subscribed to another Sprint data plan, such as the Pro Pack that is going for $30 a month. Now instead of the huge savings that you were thinking, you are saving just $5 a month.

Overall its still not a bad deal compared to some of the other carrier plans available, but the whole lowering the price from $50 to $15 seems a little confusing and misleading. The last catch is the same as the regular data plans, which means that the Phone-As-Modem plans are also capped at 5GB of data transfer per month.

Read [RCRWireless]

We have recently seen a firmware update come for the Instinct that offered some notable improvements for items such as increasing the audio volume when using Bluetooth, as well as improvements to the signal and battery indicators and the web browser.

With that update having been rolled out, it seems Sprint decided it was time to begin rolling out some individual updates for applications.

These new updates will not be coming all as one big package but instead on a case by case basis, so expect to be prompted to download and install an update when launching apps in the short term future. The updates are going to include Picture Mail, the web browser, Sprint TV and Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint Email, Sprint Music Store, Visual Voicemail and Mobile Sync.

Read [InstinctInsight] Via [Mobile Burn]

At this point, although it still has not been officially confirmed we are fully expecting Sprint to release an HTC Touch Diamond in the near future, however these latest images are showing off a newly colored red Diamond. Of course these are likely to be nothing more than a Photoshop hoax, so use your best judgment as to whether they are real or not. Personally they look a bit faked, but considering how many other handsets are appearing in various colors lately, you never know for sure. The latest rumored availability date we have come across is August 28, hopefully (for Sprint users) this date will hold true.

Read [SprintUsers Forum] Via [EngadgetMobile]

We first saw that blurry in-the-wild style image back in early-July, and now have some further evidence that the HTC Touch Diamond will soon be heading to Sprint.

The China Post is reporting that it will be arriving, and soon, they have stated that it will be available “through Sprint Nextel Corp. in August.” Sounds like good news for Sprint customers, but keep in mind this is far from an official announcement.

Of course, that previous image coupled with the more recent FCC sighting means that it should be available soon, however at this point all we can do is hope, and wait for the official word to come from Sprint or HTC.

Via [Engadget Mobile]

The Samsung Instinct has just been given what sounds like will be a welcomed firmware update, which is reported to include updates for some of the apps as well as the base code.

Some of the updates include an increased audio volume when using Bluetooth, the ability to use saved images as wallpaper and improvements to the signal and battery indicators as well as the web browser. Also mentioned was the ability to now set recurring appointments in the calendar.

Current Instinct owners can grab the update directly from their handset by heading to Menu -> Settings -> General and then choosing Update Phone. In addition to this update, Samsung is also rumored to have a much bigger update coming later this year.

Via [IntoMobile]

As we mentioned last week, Palm was getting ready to send out the update that would enable Bluetooth voice dialing for the Treo 800w, and that update has since been released.

Current Treo 800w users can head on over to the Palm website and grab the needed update, and take your pick of installation method. The voice dialing update can be applied from a desktop download, an over-the-air download or even using a microSD card. In order to apply this update you need to be running software version TREO800w-1.03-SPNT, you can check your current version by going to Start -> Settings -> About -> Phone Tab.

Overall a small but still worthwhile update to grab, now you can scream into your Bluetooth headset to ‘dial’ your phone, which in turn will hopefully keep the phone out of your hand a little more, especially when driving.

Read [Palm]

A nice additional feature will soon be made available for Treo 800w owners, the ability to voice dial over your Bluetooth connection. Sadly this feature just did not make the cut before the official announcement, this update will allow users to speak commands over their headset and also hear reminders and feedback from the running programs.

A specific date has not yet been announced, however based on a recently posted page on the Palm website, it will be in the “coming days.”

Read [Palm] Via [TreoCentral]