A new image suggesting Apple will soon launch an “iPhone 4S” was revealed on Thursday. 9to5Mac published a photo from Apple’s internal inventory that clearly shows the iPhone 4S moniker and suggests the 16GB iPhone 4S model number is “MD239.” Oddly, the new device is also codenamed “N94″ which was previously thought to have been reserved for the iPhone 5. 9to5Mac also said it also confirmed the phone in the system packs a dual-core A5 processor. On Wednesday we reported on a different internal inventory leak that suggested Apple will release two new 8GB iPhone models, one black and one white, in addition to a white iPod touch. While most reports have suggested Apple will reveal a thinner, lighter, aluminum unibody iPhone 5 alongside a cheaper iPhone 4S model, perhaps Apple will instead introduce an iPhone 4S and an 8GB iPhone 4.

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Apple is preparing to launch a new, less expensive iPhone 4 model that will become available at the end of September alongside the iPhone 5, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Citing multiple anonymous sources, the news organization says that the retooled iPhone 4 will feature a smaller 8GB flash drive manufactured by an unnamed South Korean company. Apple has sourced flash drives for its current iPhone models from Toshiba and Samsung. Reuters also contradicts recent reports that the iPhone 5 will launch in early October, writing instead that Apple is “targeting an end-September launch for the next-generation iPhone 5.” The report restates numerous others that claim the iPhone 5 will feature a larger display, a new antenna design and an 8-megapixel camera.

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After years of waiting from BlackBerry users, the ultimate BlackBerry has finally been made official. We broke the story on the next generation BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, and we even spent some one-on-one time with it, but there is nothing like an official announcement, right? As far as specs, it’s everything we reported it would be — 1.2GHz processor, 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen, full QWERTY keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, 8GB of onboard storage, and more. As far as availability, RIM said that the new BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 will be available from “carriers around the world” starting this summer. We’re hearing June / July still. Entire press release is after the break.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RIM Introduces New BlackBerry Bold Smartphones

New BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones are the Thinnest and Most Powerful BlackBerry Smartphones yet, Featuring the Renowned BlackBerry Keyboard Together with a Brilliant Touch Screen and the New BlackBerry 7 OS

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today unveiled two new BlackBerry® BoldTM smartphones. The high-performance BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a stunning and iconic design that integrates an incredibly easy-to-use BlackBerry keyboard with a brilliant, high resolution, capacitive touch screen. These exceptional smartphones are built on a new, performance-driven platform powered by the BlackBerry® 7 operating system and designed to deliver the ultimate in communications, multimedia and productivity for users around the world.

“The new BlackBerry Bold smartphones and BlackBerry 7 OS are inspired by millions of customers around the world who want the ultimate combination of performance, functionality and style,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “These fully-loaded and beautifully crafted smartphones offer a highly refined user experience with blazingly fast performance, a brilliant touch screen and an outstanding typing experience.”

Thin, Sleek, Iconic Design

Distinguished by an iconic design and the industry’s best keyboard, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature the premium materials and finishes that characterize the BlackBerry Bold line. Both models have a lustrous exterior with a brushed stainless steel frame and a high-gloss glass-weave backplate. They are also the thinnest BlackBerry smartphones yet, at only 10.5mm. The quality materials and optimized design of the new BlackBerry Bold smartphones are instantly evident when held in the hand.

Performance-Driven

These BlackBerry Bold smartphones are built on a new performance-driven platform featuring a 1.2 GHz processor, Liquid GraphicsTM touch screen, and support for high speed 4G/HSPA+ wide area wireless networks.

The Liquid Graphics touch screen, a key new feature powered by BlackBerry 7, delivers fast, smooth performance for highly responsive touch-based navigation, web browsing, pictures, video and graphics intensive games*. Offering up to 60 frames-per-second performance with instant UI action/response, Liquid Graphics gives customers a visually rich and immersive experience that’s responsive to the touch. In addition, the smartphones feature brilliant displays with an eye- popping 287 dpi to deliver crisp, stunning visuals.

May 2, 2011The new platform also provides support for 4G networks; the 9900 supports HSPA+ connectivity, and the 9930 supports CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and HSPA+ global roaming on GSM/UMTS networks.

NFC

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones include built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications), a new technology that will enable many rich and exciting experiences. Through NFC, users will be able to, for example, pair the BlackBerry Bold to an accessory or read information such as a web link from smart tags by simply tapping their BlackBerry Bold to an NFC tag (eg. Smart Poster).

Augmented Reality

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a built-in compass (magnetometer) to support location-based services and augmented reality. APIs will allow third party developers to take advantage of the new functionality within their applications. The new smartphones will also include Wikitude, the leader in mobile augmented reality, which overlays contextual information on what the user sees through the smartphone’s camera viewfinder.

HD Video

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones support up to 720p HD video recording and playback. Users can easily share their videos directly from the smartphone or sync videos, as well as music and photos, to their computer using Media Sync in the BlackBerry® Desktop Software.

BlackBerry 7

The BlackBerry 7 OS is designed to power the new performance-driven BlackBerry Bold platform. It provides an easier and faster user experience with improved browsing, voice- activated searches, the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, as well as additional personal and productivity apps out of the box.

The BlackBerry Browser has been significantly enhanced in BlackBerry 7. In addition to the general performance gains of Liquid Graphics, which helps deliver faster rendering and seamless panning and zooming, the BlackBerry 7 browser includes a new JIT (just in time) JavaScript compiler to improve the load time speed of web pages. The new browser also includes support for additional HTML5 elements, such as HTML5 Video.

Building upon the Universal Search feature introduced in BlackBerry 6, BlackBerry 7 expands the capability to include voice-activated search. This new capability makes it even easier and more convenient to search for content on the smartphone or web.

BlackBerry 7 also integrates BlackBerry® BalanceTM, which separates personal content from corporate content on the smartphone, giving users the freedom and flexibility to use the handset for personal email, Facebook®, Twitter®, multimedia, games and other apps while satisfying the very real need for corporate data to be highly secure and manageable. BlackBerry Balance works in conjunction with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0.3, which provides a number of unique IT policy controls such as wiping only corporate data from the handset or blocking work related content and apps from being copied or forwarded to personal contacts.

With BlackBerry 7 on the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, users will also get the full version of Docs To Go® with all “premium” features enabled out-of-the-box so that users can easily work with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the smartphone. Docs To Go also includes a native PDF viewer.

Availability

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones are expected to be available from carriers around the world beginning this summer.

For additional information please visit www.blackberry.com/touchbold

APPENDIX

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Specifications

• 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, approximately 130 g • 2.8″ capacitive touch screen display – VGA (640×480), 287 dpi resolution • Ultra-easy QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad • 1.2 GHz Processor, 768 MB RAM • 8 GB on-board memory, plus microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB cards • NFC technology • 5.0 MP camera, supports 720p HD video recording • Orientation Sensor (Accelerometer), Digital Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity Sensor • Built-in GPS / aGPS • Dual-Band Wi-Fi® – 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz and 802.11 a/n at 5 GHz • Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR support • Wireless Network support:

o 9900:Tri-BandHSPA+,Quad-BandGSM/EDGE o 9930:Dual-BandCDMA/EV-DORev.A,Dual-BandHSPA+,Quad-Band

GSM/EDGE • 1230 mAh removable, rechargeable battery

• BlackBerry 7 OS * Features OpenGL 2.0 support for developers.

About Research In Motion

###

Research In Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless innovation, revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry® solution in 1999. Today, BlackBerry products and services are used by millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. RIM is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: RIMM) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RIM). For more information, visit www.rim.com or www.blackberry.com.

Today’s one of those days when we wish we lived in South Korea. Samsung’s hot new Galaxy S II — which packs a dual-core Orion CPU, an 8 megapixel camera, a 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, and more — hits the South Korean market on all three of the country’s wireless carriers. Samsung shipped more than 14 million of the first generation Galaxy S devices, and it hopes to sell at least 10 million Galaxy S II handsets as the device makes its debut in 120 countries and on 140 different carriers in the coming months. “We expect sales to be as good as the Galaxy S,” Shin Jong-Kyun, president of Samsung Mobile, told AFP. Unfortunately there’s no word if or when the Galaxy S II will hit the United States, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up given that the first generation was offered by each of the big-four carriers.

[Via Engadget]

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Samsung Russia has confirmed that it will launch a new version of the popular Galaxy S Android smartphone next month. The Galaxy S 2011 edition will ship with Android 2.3 and also feature a new metal back cover. The phone packs a faster 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255T Snapdragon processor — as opposed to the 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird CPU in the original — as well as a 14.4Mbps HSPA+ radio and a larger 1,650mAh battery. The rest of the hardware remains identical to the original; that includes a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, 8GB of internal storage, Bluetooth 3.0, 5 megapixel camera capable of recording 720p HD video, and more. The Galaxy S 2011 edition is expected to hit Russia next month for 24,000 rubles ($846 USD). There’s no word if the 2011 edition will ever be available in other countries. Hit the jump for Samsung Russia’s blog post.

[Via Engadget]

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You thought we were done revealing RIM’s 2011 BlackBerry lineup? Not quite yet. In addition to the new BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve, and BlackBerry Torch 2, we have received photos and information about the BlackBerry Storm 3. The specifications on the Storm 3 are pretty impressive and will definitely position this Storm sequel nicely among other top-of-market handsets. It also will feature the highest resolution display to ever ship on a BlackBerry smartphone — a 800 x 480-pixel display and yes, it will have an optical trackpad (though we’re not sure why). Here is the thing, it’s entirely possible RIM will change the Storm branding on the device — codenames are Monaco and Monza for the global devices — we’ll have to wait and see. We have all the specs after the break!

• 1.2GHz processor
• 3.7-inch 800 x 480 capacitive display
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band UMTS/HSPA
• 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording
• 8GB eMMC (storage for apps and data), 512MB of RAM
• microSD slot
• Magnetometer
• Proximity sensor
• Accelerometer
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 2.4GHz b/g/n and 5GHz a/n Wi-Fi + UMA
• 3G Mobile hotspot
• Optical trackpad
• 1230 mAh battery
• BlackBerry OS 6.1
• OpenGL ES 2.0

The BlackBerry Storm 3 looks good for a release around September of this year, and from what we have been told, the Storm 3 will launch in two or possibly three versions globally.

A blog by the name of Mobility Insider is claiming to have the inside scoop on the pricing schema for the unreleased BlackBerry Playbook tablet. The site does not cite any sources — anonymous or otherwise — but claims to have first hand knowledge about RIM’s tablet. The report indicates that the Playbook will be available with three different storage capacities. An 8GB model will retail for $399, a 16GB for $499, and a 32GB for $599. The site goes on to note that all models will be Wi-Fi only and will acquire cellular data connectivity through a tethered BlackBerry smartphone. RIM’s highly-anticipated, dual-core tablet is set to launch sometime early next year… what do you think of the purported pricing?

[Via CrackBerry]

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You know we are big fans of Vertu handsets around these parts, and Mr. Frank Nuovo certainly isn’t sitting in the UK counting iPhone sales while doing nothing. Vertu has, in Vertu tradition, silently announced an updated model in their lineup and it is the new Vertu Ascent for 2010. Picking up on almost all of the previous phone’s shortcomings (save for the S40-based OS, of course), the new Ascent features quad-band 3G, GPS, preloaded maps for navigation, a 5 megapixel camera, and will come in 8GB and 32GB internal memory configurations in addition to titanium and aircraft-grade aluminum casings. But, it’s a Vertu, and that means there are a plethora of different color combinations. Since the Ascent is racing inspired, don’t hold your breath for diamond-studded versions. Yet there are plenty of bright color finishes to get your juices flowing. You know, if you are into dropping anywhere from $5,000 and up on a cell phone. Couple more shots after the break!

[Via Engadget]

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Oh Rogers, Rogers, Rogers. A short and sweet PRified denial isn’t going to get you out of this one just yet. Rogers claims that all past references to the 8GB iPhone 3GS, whether in its internal sales system or on its own consumer website, were nothing more than a mistake that has been since been corrected. If this were really the case, why is it that an entry for the “IPHN8BLKR 3GS GSM” is still alive in kicking in SalesCentral? Beyond pretty clear visual evidence, we’ve been in contact with several Rogers dealers who have confirmed references to an 8GB 3GS coming and going from the system quite often in the past week. Yeah, we can’t help but think that someone is lying here — and we bet you can all guess whose pants we think are on fire. Hit the jump for a bigger version of the image above.

Thanks, MrWizard

An iPhone 3GS versus 3G comparison chart on the Rogers website seemingly confirms the existence of an iPhone 3GS 8GB as we scooped exclusively earlier this month. Even with a casual glance, one can not miss that big blue check mark clearly marking the iPhone 3GS as being available in an 8GB capacity. Whether this is an errant check mark that needs to be wiped from the chart or a cleverly designed leak remains to be seen but with the previous intel we unleashed last week, we’re obviously leaning towards the latter. No other details are available but it looks like those of you who haven’t yet snagged an iPhone 3GS will have an 8GB model to look forward to soon enough.

[Via Macrumors]

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We’ve had a number of unconfirmed tips over the last few days about this so we figured we’d post it… apparently it seems that Rogers in Canada is in the process of shipping iPhone 3GS 8GB flavor handsets to stores. Again, unconfirmed, no idea on pricing (we have no clue where to start on that) but we felt it was newsworthy to at least let you guys know what we’re hearing. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Maybe the iPhone 3G stock is finally sold out and Apple will quietly (or not quietly) replace the $99 model iPhone with an 8GB 3GS?

UPDATE: Added screenshots. Definitely looks legit to us! One more shot after the breakage.

Thanks, sneaky tipsters!

When Apple announced that the iPhone 3G would drop in price to $99 with the introduction of the 3GS, it was a big deal. It wasn’t much of a surprise of course as we had been expecting the iPhone to dip below $100 for quite some time already, but a big deal none the less. As was also expected, AT&T has just issued its first round of refurbished iPhone 3G models since the price cut and the prices, though not nearly as reduced as we’re used to seeing, are lower still: $79 for an 8GB model and $129 for a 16GB model. This poses the question, is the iPhone 3G any more attractive at these price points? Of course the real barrier for many is the additional cost of ownership over two years — a minimum of $1,680 plus taxes and fees on an individual plan. We know that lines up well with flagship phones from other carriers but a $79 handset isn’t competing with flagship phones anymore where cost and demographics are concerned. After all, $79 phone is what people spend on a phone when they don’t care what phone it is; the cost of owning said phone will likely come in at just over half of what an iPhone will cost over two years. What do you guys think — is an $80 iPhone 3G a great buy or is AT&T wasting its time with these new lower price points?

[Via TUAW]

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We’ve heard some rumors about an upcoming PSP refresh in the past — ok, a whole lot of rumors — but new information is casting doubt upon the details of previous information. 1UP is reporting that the new PSP will be christened the PSP Go! and will finally do away with that awful UMD system while taking on a slider form. In place of UMDs, it is said the PSP Go! will come in 8GB and 16GB models meaning a green light for game downloads. As for games, Sony is reportedly planning to have around 100 old and new games ready for launch time. Sadly those of you who were looking for a bit of dual-joystick action will be disappointed to note that according to this new rumor, a second analog stick will not be added to the right-hand side. Such is life, we suppose. Word is Sony will make the PSP Go! official at E3 next month and have it hit the streets in Japan in September with a US launch in either late October or early November — ensuring its inclusion in plenty of letters to Santa. And yes, the image above is a mock up.

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