Listen up Quickfire owners, AT&T just made a pretty major announcement: Your phone is going to self-destruct in exactly five days! Just kidding, sort of — if you don’t follow the proper procedures for charging your device, it just might. On Monday we broke news of the Quickfire being pulled off shelves and being cut from sales indefinitely without any public statement from AT&T. Now Big Blue is saying there have been reports of significant overheating when the charger is forced or incorrectly inserted into the phone. While there is usually only one way to get a charger in, sometimes phone designs allow for some wiggle room and these bad connectors appear to be the culprit of the Quickfire’s dismissal. If you own a Quickfire and haven’t received a notice already, you’ll soon receive an email and SMS that reads:

Please take special care when charging your Quickfire GTX75 mobile phone. There have been a few reports of significant overheating of the phone when the AC Charger adapter is inserted incorrectly and forced into the phone. The clearly marked, embossed arrow on the AC Charger adapter should always be face-up on the same side as the display screen of the Quickfire when it is inserted into the phone. See the diagram below for proper positioning and insertion of the AC Charger adapter into the phone. You should never force the AC Charger adapter into the phone.

This goes without saying but be sure to take note of this to avoid any injuries or serious damage to your phone and property. At least now we know why such a cool little device was suddenly yanked from store shelves and we hope the problem is remedied soon.

Thanks, Craig!

[Via Phonescoop]

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We got a couple tips this morning that AT&T has issued a notice to all store managers to stop selling AT&T Quickfires, and they’ve even been asked to pull the demo handsets from the floor. We heard the reason that AT&T is bailing on the phone is due to “quality issues”. Anyone going to miss the little bugger? Nah, we doubt it!

Thanks, to our tipsters who sent this in!

“Big city life” has its ups and downs. Among the upside elements are convenience, diversity, variety and plenty to do after the sun goes down. On the downside, AT&T stores generally listen to HQ. November 11th release date be damned, at least one AT&T store in rural America has reportedly decided to stick it to the man and begin selling the Quickfire a bit early. The tipster hasn’t revealed the location of the rouge shop so we can’t tell you where it’s being sold, but we can at least confirm that the pricing we first reported last month is accurate. $100 after MIR with a 2-year contract and you’re out the door with this bad boy. So what do you think – should T-Mobile’s Sidekick start getting nervous?

[Via Engadget]

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Well what do we have here? Live shots of AT&T’s upcoming answer to the T-Mobile Sidekick just came in courtesy of one of our ninjas and we thought we might as well share ‘em with you. We’ve all known the Quickfire has been in the pipeline for a while and last month we dropped the very reasonable official price point of $100 after MIR. For a 3G messaging machine with a sliding touchscreen, full QWERTY keyboard, a music player and GPS – $100 really isn’t bad at all. Of course that’s the 2-year contract price; a contract free version will run you $300 (still not terrible). The tentative release date according to the AT&T lineup document we showed you last month is next Tuesday, November 11, and it looks like we might be right on schedule. Hit the jump for plenty more poses, including a shot of the retail packaging.

Wondering what your shopping list might look like this holiday season? One of our AT&T ninjas got his hands on an internal control document outlining new release between now and the holidays so if AT&T is your carrier of choice, here’s what Big Blue has in store for you between now and the holidays:

• Pantech Matrix: $80 after MIR
• Samsung Propel:$80 after MIR
• AT&T Quickfire: $100 after MIR
• Samsung Eternity: $150 after MIR
• Samsung EPIX: $200 after MIR
• LG Incite: $200 after MIR
• HTC Fuze: $300 after MIR

Last but certainly not least, our ninja did in fact report that the Bold is on the list – with no pricing specified of course. At the very least, this may put the Bold on store shelves by the time the holiday shopping season starts, though we expect that it’ll drop sooner rather than later. Then again, as much as it has been delayed thus far AT&T may just be holding the spot without any real indication that it will be ready in time. Fingers = crossed.