This isn’t exactly shocking news, but we thought we would share anyway. BBLeaks is reporting that Verizon Wireless will give the BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 and the BlackBerry Curve 8530 their end-of-life papers on August 15th and August 1st respectively. The move comes as Verizon makes room in its inventory for newer BlackBerry devices; BBLeaks reports that replacements for the 9550 and 8530 are due out in Q3/Q4 (which is a pretty large 6-month window). The 8530 is likely going to be replaced by the 930...

MetroPCS, a company known for their low priced cellular plans and lack of annual contracts, has just announced that it will be adding the BlackBerry Curve 8530 to its lineup. The Curve 8530 can be purchased for $279 ($229 after a $50 MIR), and for $60 a month will include: “unlimited talk, text, Web and data service, Wi-Fi connectivity, e-mail, and turn-by-turn GPS navigation [...] including all applicable taxes and regulatory fees.” Say what you want about MetroPCS’ urban-centric coverage m...

Yesterday, the folks over at Crackberry got their hands on images of the BlackBerry Curve 9300; the heir apparent to the 8500 series. The divulged specs look like this: 320 x 240 display, 256 MB of RAM, Wi-Fi (b/g/n), optical trackpad and BlackBerry OS 5. The unit pictured is a GSM joint, although Crackberry assures its readers that a CDMA variant will emerge at some point. The phone has a rubberized back and side convenience keys — much like the current 8500 series — a full chrome bezel that wrap...

Virgin Mobile fired shots across the bow of its pre-paid competition this morning as it officially launched the Beyond Talk plans that we told you about just under a week ago. Starting at $25, the main selling point of the Beyond Talk service offerings is that they all feature unlimited text, email, data and web. The reason for the difference in price between the plans is the number of minutes you get. The $25 and $40 plans are good for 300 and 1,200 minutes respectively, while the $60 plan offers unlimited...

Some huge news this evening in the world of prepaid mobiles as Sprint has announced its new strategies for Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. With some 60 million Americans using prepaid mobiles, Sprint feels the time is right to make an all-out assault on the market. Said Sprint’s Dan Schulman: “This is the year that prepaid moves to the forefront of the wireless industry. In the first quarter of 2010, more than half of the mobile gross additions in the U.S. selected prepaid, and we predict that ap...

It was mentioned in one of our whispers and now it’s here: Verizon has released a Push-To-Talk application for its fleet of BlackBerry smartphones. Free to download but requiring a monthly fee of $5 to use, Verizon’s BlackBerry PTT app allows for unlimited nation-wide calls to other PTT devices. Other key features include:Make group calls with up to 50 participants.Use Presence to see who’s available for Push to Talk calls.Manage Push to Talk contacts for your entire company online.Access email...

Verizon seems to be planning on expanding its prepaid line-up and options for current and would-be customers by throwing BlackBerry into the mix. Word is that within the next three months, prepaid BlackBerry plans will become available, though we’re not sure if all devices would be included. Rumor is that the plan adds $35 on top of the voice package, which isn’t so bad when compared to other carriers and most post-paid plans. We’ve also received word that the prepaid bundles would match Ver...

Sprint has just added a new device to its BlackBerry family — the Curve 8530. Though this is on the low-end for BlackBerry devices, that doesn’t mean it skimps out on any features. The BlackBerry 8530 for Sprint comes with Wi-Fi, 256MB of on-board memory, support for 32GB of expandable memory and a host of social networking applications already built in. Best of all, for those of you who want a smartphone but are on a budget, the Curve 8530 is only $49.99 after two-year contract and MIR. If you...

With today being Thanksgiving and most blogs closing shop for the day, we thought it would be a perfect time for us to break out our review of the latest smartphone in Verizon’s line-up, the BlackBerry Curve 8530. More or less the same device as T-Mobile’s (and soon to be AT&T’s) Curve 8520, the 8530 differs a bit: it adds GPS into the fold and runs on EV-DO Rev. 0 networks. We’ve been putting it through our patent-pending stress test this week, so hit the break to check out our th...

It might not be fancy or scream “look at me”, but Verizon’s now-available BlackBerry Curve 8530 is a smartphone that gets the job done. Kitted out with a 2.5″ display, 2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and 256MB of flash memory, the Curve 8530 is also the first full-QWERTY BlackBerry from Verizon to feature RIM’s new optical trackpad and OS 5.0. Other than that, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Stereo Bluetooth, support for microSD cards and dedicated multimedia keys round out the rest of th...

Shortly after the official announcement for the BlackBerry Curve 8530 coming to Verizon, Sprint customers were asking, “When are we getting ours?” It looks like a Sprint version may be coming around about the same time as Verizon’s 8530. There is no date for sure, but a Sprint spokesperson said that it is definitely coming and will be packing Wi-Fi and EV-DO, too. The price point should be about the same as Verizon’s, we’d imagine, though we’re hoping they give some kind of...

Yesterday, Sprint executive David Owens dropped a ton of great news for Sprint customers in a live chat. Some of the news isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s still good to know and get confirmation from Sprint directly. Read on for the list of items that were mentioned. (more…)

For Verizon fans, the biggest and most anticipated device coming from Big Red is the Droid, and many of you have come to rely on your pals at BGR as your one-stop-shop for Droid news, info and pics. Now we’re bringing a little more to the plate with Verizon’s holiday lineup. Most of this stuff is old news, so we won’t bore you with what you already know, but it is interesting to see how Verizon is gearing up its employees to handle the busiest time of year. In one slide, Verizon says, “...