We announced two days ago that AT&T was going to do something a little special for the holidays – taking 50% off BlackBerry smartphones. Starting today, you can head into an AT&T retail store or hop online and grab a BlackBerry of your choice, the BlackBerry 9700 included, for half of what you’d normally have to shell out any other time of year. We don’t need to tell you that this requires a two year agreement and there’s still a mail-in-rebate, but we just did. Just in case. We’re not sure how long this offer will last, but you can bet it will only be for a limited time. And before we forget, the Samsung Solstice will be free with a new contract and all that jazz.

Thanks, J!

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While RIM’s next-generation handsets such as the Bold, Storm and Curve 8900 are already flooding the marketplace — and a new wave including the Tour and Curve 8520 are on the horizon — it looks like RIM’s bread and butter is still the trusty old Curve 83xx series. According to recent analysis by The NPD Group, the BlackBerry Curve was America’s best selling smartphone in Q1 of 2009. It steals the title from the iPhone of course, as sales slow from its incredible pace last year. The NPD Group cites aggressive promotions such as Verizon’s popular BOGO offers as the catalyst behind the surge. Here are the top five smartphones in America this past quarter:

1. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models)
2. Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
3. RIM BlackBerry Storm
4. RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
5. T-Mobile G1

RIM, holding three of the top five slots, shipped an astounding 7.8 million BlackBerry handsets in its last reported quarter (Dec 08 – Feb 09) so this hardly comes as a surprise. With several new BlackBerry models on the horizon and at least one new iPhone model due out this Summer, things are definitely starting to heat up in the US smartphone space.

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Sure, it’s been on the BlackBerry download site for a while now, but AT&T has finally started to announce the arrival of OS 4.5 for three of its handsets: the 8820, 8320 and 8310. We’re guessing that AT&T is subtly trying to say that if you’re device isn’t covered there is a Bold with your name on it at your nearest AT&T store. That or sit tight and wait until we get our act together (tip: Delete vendor.xml and you can use any carriers OS builds on your BlackBerry so long as it’s designed for the same device).

Anyway, OS 4.5 has a heck of a lot of improvements over its predecessors so if you don’t have it you owe it to yourself to start the process here.

Qik announced on Wednesday that its popular mobile video streaming product is now available for the OS 4.5 version of the Blackberry Curve 8310, 8330 and Pearl 8130. These models had some incompatibility problems with the initial launch of the BlackBerry version of Qik, forcing Qik to make some changes to its BlackBerry client. The tweaking is now done and all you 8310, 8330 and 8130 owners can join your Bold, 8320 and 8120-owning brethren in some Qiking fun. This new version of the BlackBerry Qik is in Alpha and is available for download now from Qik’s website. Drop us a line in the comments if you will be Qiking any of your Thanksgiving or Black Friday adventures.

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By now you all have heard that BlackBerry BIS 2.5 is rolling out to U.S. carriers on June 29th. Heck, there’s even going to be some downtime. But, maybe that isn’t enough? Maybe you’d like more information. We’ve definitely got you covered in that area. We just got a hold of this presentation outlining BIS 2.5 and all the various features. The sad part? As some of you know, all the sexy stuff requires BlackBerry OS 4.5 which according to the presentation will not be available until September. That’s not to say some of you aren’t running it already, but September guys? For reals? Head on over to the gallery to check it out for yourself, but we’ll break down the more interesting stuff here for all you lazy bums:

• You can save attachments including audio and video formats.
• Full list of supported downloadable attachments are: .doc, .ppt., .xls, .wpd, .txt, .html, .pdf, .zip, and the aforementioned audio / video formats.
• File size of attachments is limited to 3MB.
• The 4.5 OS will be “available for all BlackBerry’s in September.” This includes the 8100, 8800, 8820, 8300, 8310, 8120, and the 8110. No 8320 love?
• “If a BlackBerry launches before September, it will have 4.5 software.”
• Addition of push AOL email and Hotmail/MSN accounts.

Click on over to our BlackBerry BIS 2.5 presentation gallery!