The Nielsen Company reported Monday that smartphones now account for 28% of the cell phone market in the United States. Nielsen’s report also states that 41% of cell phones purchased in the U.S. over the past six months were smartphones. In terms of smartphone OS share, Nielsen paints a very different picture compared to earlier data presented by the NPD Group and Canalys. Nielsen’s data shows RIM still at the top of the U.S. smartphone market with a 30% share. Apple sits at number 2 with 28% and ...

It’s getting a little clearer now… We reported that the Storm 2 would be getting a follow up device that is very, very similar to the existing model. What is looking almost confirmed now, is that the follow up device is a Storm 2 refresh and not the BlackBerry Storm 3. A new leaked OS screen shot seems to confirm this by showing off a model number of 9570. If that sounds familiar, its because the current model number for the existing Storm 2 is 9550. It appears RIM really needs OS 6 to run on a mi...

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...

Verizon Wireless customers in the market for a new handset may want to put the brakes on any purchases until next week. One of our insiders tipped us off to a sale on handsets that is slated to start on Monday, June 28th. The promotion extends to both smartphones and feature phones and includes the following handsets:LG enV Touch: $49.99 after $100 mail-in-rebate ($30 drop). Eligible for BOGO (buy one get, one same device).BlackBerry Storm 2: $149 after $100 mail-in-rebate ($30 drop). Eligible for BOGA (buy o...

We know it’s coming — Verizon’s CEO is flashing it to random college students around NYC, RIM is updating BIS infrastructure, and there’s been a ton of release dates flying around. However, it now looks like Verizon Wireless’ web team is jumping on the Storm 2 bandwagon as well. Last night the Storm Part Deux made it’s debut on the VZW website — all 360 degrees of it. Take er’ for a spin, won’t you? Also, if you’re up for it, we’d love to know ...

With the BlackBerry Storm2 getting nice and official over night, we here at BGR thought that it would be nice for us to take a moment and focus on just what its launch means for our loyal readers that aren’t living in The New World. Earlier this week, UK-based The Guardian proclaimed that the Storm2 would be announced by both RIM and Vodafone this week. Clearly this was the case as we now know it will be arriving on or around the 26th of October, but its report missed out on one huge revelation — ...

It’s only a small matter of time now before the BlackBerry Storm 2 officially hits the streets, but Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam has been seen flaunting the goods a little early in New York City. Apparently, McAdam has been carrying the device for weeks now and feeling it out. To put it to the test, he showed it to some NYU students and it was well-received according to the New York Times:“I let them play with the second-generation Storm device,” he said. “They came back and said ‘Oh, my gosh.’ T...

While it’s certainly not much to go on, The Guardian is reporting that the BlackBerry Storm 9520 aka Storm2 will be announced this week by Vodafone UK. Specifics are scarce and it is not entirely clear as to when consumers will actually be able to actually purchase the next-gen Storm, but at the moment we’re more interested in another matter. You see, The Guardian seems to think that Vodafone subs will be able to walk away with a new Storm for free on all tariffs over  £30 ($47.40 USD). Now, whe...

Need more proof that Verizon is on the cusp of releasing the BlackBerry Storm 9550? If so, you might want to check out this BES 5.0 flyer that one of our BlackBerry connects just sent us. Aimed towards corporate folks, the flyer lists what a glorious and indispensable business tool the still-unannounced BlackBerry 9550 is when running on BES 5.0. You know, good stuff like follow-up flags, advanced folder management, calendar appointment forwarding, wireless contact sync, document editing with DocumentsToGo an...

Before you get too excited, sometimes Best Buy simply inputs incorrect dates into their systems when loading SKUs. What is incredibly interesting, besides the fact they’ve gone through the trouble to conceal these product names, is that in our leaked Holiday Playbook, Best Buy mentioned that October 25th would be a “key date for handsets entering our assortment.” Sounds pretty nice, right? We’ve been told the price range for the five handsets in here (full retail Best Buy pricing) is $...

If you’ve been wondering whether the Motorola Droid (or Tao, or Sholes — whatever), BlackBerry Storm 2, BlackBerry Curve 2 or LG Chocolate Touch would be hitting Sam’s Club stores or even TARGET, you’re in luck. We just scored an internal document outlining merchandising, training, locations, and pretty much everything else you’d need to know. While Sam’s Club appears to be set up to carry the Motorola Android handset, TARGET seems to be left out. We won’t bore you wi...

We were lucky enough to get our hands on Best Buy Mobile’s entire Holiday Playbook and after combing through it, there’s a couple little nice nuggets of information. Really more confirmations than anything else, but hey, we aren’t ones to turn down info. Before we get to handsets specifically, it seems Best Buy has some pretty hard statistics on sales opportunities — check this out:The average store sees over 64,000 customers during October and NovemberOut of those customers, only 1% r...

One of our ninjas just blessed us with a product inventory shot from Best Buy. It shows that Best Buy locations will be getting BlackBerry Storm 2 dummy units starting October 25th. Why is that important? Well, as it was explained to us, actual retail units start to come in a little bit before or a little bit after those dummy models hit.Have the hunger for one more piece of Storm 2 info? Fine. We’ve also been told the unit will retail for $599 at Best Buy locations with no service agreement.

So, check it. There’s been a lot of talk about the BlackBerry Storm 9550 and we thought it would be nice to shine some light on its brother, the 9520. Remember how Vodafone’s unit was the 9500 and Verizon had the 9530? It seems as if that’s going to be mainly the same scenario this time around with Verizon getting the 9550 and Vodafone and other GSM carriers rocking the BlackBerry 9520. In terms of the improvements when comparing the Storm 2 to the original, as reported by other media outlet...