Sprint Announces the Blackberry Style, With Blackberry 6

Sprint has announced the Blackberry Style flip phone, the first flip-style Blackberry with a full keyboard and the first CDMA Blackberry to launch with OS 6. The phone features a 360 by 400 pixel internal display, a five megapixel camera, GPS, b/g/n wifi support, and support for dual-band CDMA Rev. A. The Style will come in both black and purple, and is exclusive to Sprint, at least for now. The Blackberry experience is even better with the addition of OS 6, bringing an improved Webkit browser, universal search, and Blackberry Media Sync, although the phone's style isn't the most attractive. The phone will be available on October 31 for $99 with a new two-year contract and a mail-in rebate. (Sprint)

Sprint Launches the Blackberry Curve 3G

The Blackberry Curve 3G smartphone, the next phone in the large Curve line from RIM, has been launched on Sprint. Besides a few minor cosmetic tweaks, the phone is very similar to the Curve 8530, featuring a 2.0 megapixel camera, a QWERTY keyboard, and an optical trackpad for navigation. The differences lie in the internals of the phone, where the Curve 3G sports double the memory as the Curve 8530. This means that the phone will be upgradable to Blackberry OS 6, which gives the Blackberry a much-improved web browser and other features, such as universal search and a redesigned home screen. The phone is available now for $49 with a new two-year contract, and an eligible data plan. (Sprint)

Sprint Finally Offering Refurbished Phones for Regular Sale

Sprint has finally decided to let customers buy refurbished phones in addition to new ones, a great way to save some money the next time that you buy your next phone. Something that other phone carriers have been doing for a long time now, refurbished phones used to only be available when you got needed to get a phone replaced. Some of the phones that are available to be refurbished include the HTC Hero, Blackberry Bold 9650, and the Sanyo 2700. Hopefully, more and more phones will be available refurbished soon, since you can save over $100 buying a phone refurbished instead of new from Sprint. (Sprint)

Boost Mobile Launched Blackberry Curve 8530

Boost Mobile, the prepaid service running on the Sprint and Nextel networks, has now launched another smartphone on their service, the Blackberry Curve 8530. The Curve features a full QWERTY keyboard, a two-megapixel camera, and 3G data services. The addition of the 8530 improves the lineup of phones for Boost mobile, which is known for its cheap unlimited plans that also feature free push to talk on phones that support it. The phone will cost $249, with no contract agreements. (Sprint)

Blackberry Curve 3G Announced for Sprint

The Blackberry Curve 3G, yet another update to the popular Curve series, has been announced for Sprint. The phone will be coming on September 26 through Sprint's telesales and online sales, and then in brick and mortar stores on October 10. The phone will cost $49 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a new two-year contract. The Curve 3G is very similar to the Curve 8530, with the main differences being a slightly updated housing and double the RAM inside. A 2 GB microSD card will be included with the Curve 3G. The phone will be coming in Graphite Gray and Royal Purple, with a new textured battery cover on both. The main reason for the release of the new phone is that it will be compatible with Blackbery OS 6, when it comes out for phones other than the Blackberry Torch. The phone is a bigger upgrade for GSM users, however, because the Curve 8520 did not include 3G like the Sprint and Verizon versions. An Everything Data or Simply Everything plan is required to use the phone.
-Sprint Blog

Cross Platform Smartphone Chat with Cnectd

If you have ever had a Blackberry, you will know that Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is one of the best features of the phone. From being able to talk to people around the world, to groups, and the delivered and read message notifications, the program is really only limited by the fact that you can only use it to and from other Blackberry smartphones. Other programs for instant messaging like AIM are nice, but they are very connected to the device and still don't deliver some of the features of Blackberry Messenger.

Well, now there is a solution for chatting across multiple platforms, Cnectd. The program is available for Symbian (many people overseas), Android, Blackberry, and even iPhone. The program lets you create a username for your account, and you can carry the account over to other smartphone platforms if you get a new device (no more PIN switching for Blackberry users). The program even offers the delivered and read notifications from BBM which are something taken for granted by most BlackBerry users.

Although I didn't get a chance to try out the program with many others users, I installed it on both my Sprint Blackberry and iPod touch, and the program worked great. It delivered the messages fast, using push notifications on the iPod too, and the delivered and read symbols changed fast. You can even send pictures and your current location to other users with the program.

If you have friends with different devices and want something to chat with (in case they don't have a data plan), or you switch between platforms and devices a lot, Cnectd is a great program for keeping in touch, especially with the robust feature set that hasn't been seen since Blackberry Messenger. (Cnectd)

My Experience With PdaNet for Tethering

As most hardcore Sprint subscribers know by now, when you switch to one of the Everything Data plans that includes the unlimited mobile to mobile calling you cannot get the tethering feature for your phone. Now, all that this means is that you can't use Sprint Smartview to tether your smartphone to your computer like a data card. For the past few months I have been trying out an application called PdaNet, which is a lightweight and free to try application for Blackberry's and other smartphones.

There are other applications that you can buy, such as Tether (previously Tetherberry), but those have a thirty day trial and then you have to pay up to fifty dollars for the program on your phone. Before going on a trip, I decided to install PdaNet to see if I could get it to work and how fast it was.

Setup was a breeze, you just had to install the lightweight app on your computer and desktop machine (I have a Windows 7 laptop but there is also a version for Mac), plug in your app, and go to the app and click use USB connection. You will either get a prompt on your computer to connect, or you have to click on the task bar and click connect on the pop up menu. After that, you can start surfing the web! The speed of the connection isn't bad, although I live with good Sprint 3G coverage and it depends on how fast your phone connection is.

After about a month of using the software, I now get a popup every once in a while to purchase the program because my "trial is expiring." You are allowed to just click exit to the make the popup go away. I think that the more data that you use when tethering your phone to the computer the more the popup will come, from what I have noticed.

If you are looking for a tethering application for your smartphone, go ahead and see if PdaNet will work for you. I am writing this article using the program to get online, since the hotel I am at doesn't have very good Wifi. Just make sure to watch your usage, because it can be easy to eat up your 5 GB of data every month tethering your smartphone to your computer. (June Fabrics Technology)

Blackberry Bold 9650 Now Available

Beating Verizon to the punch by almost two weeks now, the new Blackberry Bold 9650 is finally here. In case you haven't been paying attention to the news about the follow up to the Tour, it was delayed since February to upgrade the memory to 512 MB and rebrand it from Tour 2 to Bold. The phone also includes a trackpad in place of the trackball and Wifi. Although there hasn't been any release of the phone on Verizon, it is available from Sprint for $199 after rebates.

Sprint Posts Less Customer Losses and Increased Revenue

The future is looking bright(er) for Sprint lately, with improved customer losses and increased revenue compared with their last earnings report. Sprint saw an increase in revenue to eight billion dollars, and also saw less customer losses overall with 75,000 customers leaving. Less customers were lost because of the aggressive advertising of their prepaid customers, which boosted the total number of customers with Sprint service. Overall, not a bad first quarter for Sprint, especially with the HTC Evo coming this summer, along with a new Blackberry Bold. (Sprint)

New Smartphone Low Prices

Starting this week, multiple smartphones from Sprint have dropped in price. Here are a few of the dropped phones:

Palm Pixi: $49 (was $99)
HTC Hero: $149 (was $179)
Samsung Moment: $99 (was $179)
Blackberry Tour: $99 (was $149)

Maybe the most notable of these smartphones is the Palm Pixi, which is only a couple of months old. If this is anything like the Pre, the price has dropped so soon because of weak sales. The launch of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on Verizon might have a hand in that, though. The Moment is now a great deal if you are looking for an Android phone, especially with the full keyboard and Android 2.1 coming soon. If you are in the market for any new Sprint smartphone, though, now would be the time to buy for low prices. But if you are looking to get the latest and greatest, these price drops might just mean we are going to be getting some new smartphones soon, such as the Bold. (Sprint)

HTC Hero Now Available

In case you haven't already head, the HTC Hero is now available from Sprint. The Hero is somewhat similar in design to the European Hero, but it now doesn't feature the large chin that the European version has, and also has a larger trackball surrounded by flush (but easy to press) buttons that were all right below the screen on the European version. The Hero also is much snappier than the European Hero, which was known for it's lag time, partly because of the HTC Sense UI. The Sense UI is also on this version of the Hero, but it seems that the software has been modified so the lag time is gone from the phone. The whole phone is great from my use. It has a gorgeous multi-touch screen, a great web browser, and the entire phone is very customizable and has a great feel to it. Every feature of it is great, including the multiple home screens that now come with it. The virtual keyboard is also great, and you can use it either in vertical or horizontal, or use a modified (like the Blackberry Pearl) keyboard or a number pad with T9 text input, also. And in case you were worried about breaking it, don't worry, because the built quality is some of the best I have ever used (er, felt), and it doesn't seem like a few drops w0uld hurt this phone. It is available from Sprint for $179 with a two-year contract.