T-Mobile Leak Suggests BlackBerry Torch 9860 Arrival

Now that Verizon has confirmed its plans for the BlackBerry Torch 9850, the smartphone has a solid home on CDMA networks in the US. What about its presence on the big GSM-based carriers, as the Torch 9860? AT&T announced its plans for the phone back at the beginning of August, but things have been much quieter over at T-Mobile. Now we're starting to see signs that the carriermight pick up the 9860 after all, thanks to a newly-leaked screenshot.

This info comes courtesy of a webform T-Mobile uses to process smartphone trade-ins. There, under the list of possible BlackBerry models a customer may be upgrading to, is the Torch 9860.

Now, this is hardly bulletproof confirmation that we'll see the phone on T-Mobile - and it doesn't give us any sense of just when the carrier might start selling the Torch 9860 - but it's definitely a sign pointing in that direction.

Also included in the list is the BlackBerry Curve 9360, which we've already heard rumored for a T-Mobile release. That model will supposedly go up for sale next week, on September 14. 

Samsung Stratosphere Hits FCC With Verizon's LTE Band

Yesterday we took a look at some of the nicest pics we've yet seen of the Samsung Stratosphere QWERTY slider headed to Verizon and its LTEnetwork. At the time, we mentioned that the Stratosphere's release could be nearly upon us, ready to drop almost any day now. You can't very well launch a smartphone in the US without it passing FCC testing, and as of then we were still waiting for the Stratosphere to put in an appearance with the agency. Right on cue, the FCC has published its documentation for theSamsung SCH-I405 Stratosphere, showing off its compatibility with Verizon LTE.

Just as expected, alongside the Verizon CDMA and EV-DO bands, is the carrier's LTE band 13, setting the Stratosphere up for some high-speed data access. In addition those cellular modes, the phone also supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi.

While that sorts out the Stratosphere's radio, we're still lacking some important information on the rest of the phone's hardware specs. It's supposed to be an upper-mid-tier device, but details on its processor and memory are still unavailable. If the phone's launch really is almost upon us, we might hope to see that data leak out from somewhere or other in the very near future.

Verizon Shares Release Plans for BlackBerry Torch 9850

Sprint added RIM's BlackBerry Torch 9850 to its lineup late last month, but the smartphone has been taking it's good, sweet time to show up at Verizon. We've seen the 9850 depicted in leaked Verizon promotional material, but haven't been privy to just when the carrier might introduce the model itself. Today our questions have been answered, with Verizon announcing the Torch 9850's arrival to its lineup beginning September 8.

Starting this Thursday, you'll be able to place an order for the 9850 online through Verizon's site. It will be another week, until September 15, that the smartphone will also be available for sale in brick-and-mortar Verizon stores.

Unlike Sprint, with its 9850 fetching about $150 on-contract, Verizon subscribers will have to pony-up a little more to get their hands on the phone, thanks to sticker price of around $200 with service agreement. That's unfortunate, but the price doesn't seem that unreasonable when comparing the hardware – with a 1.2GHz processor, 3.7-inch WVGA screen, and 720p-video-capable camera – against that of some of the Android smartphones Verizon currently carries.

Motorola Lets Loose Droid 2 Global Gingerbread Update

Motorola kicked-off September by finally releasing an official Gingerbread update for last year's Droid 2. This was some much-needed good news, following a summer of missteps when it came to getting the promised Gingerbread updates out to many older members of the Droid clan. With the Droid 2 taken care of, it only seemed logical that we would see the Droid 2 Global soon tapped to get an update of its own. Less than a week later, Motorola has now announced that distribution of the D2G's Gingerbread has begun.

So far, there are no indications that we could be looking at a repeat of June's false start, when Verizon looked ready to start sending a D2G Gingerbread update out at any moment, only for Motorola to step up and announce that no such release was imminent. Since then, it seems like Motorola's largely worked out whatever issues it was having with Verizon and update approval, and things have been going more smoothly.

As per usual, the update is scheduled for distribution in stages; no word on how long it might take to reach everyone. In the meantime, you can check out the release notes up on Verizon's support page for the phone, detailing what you can expect post-update.

Samsung Nexus Prime UAProf Lists WVGA Resolution

Samsung has already basically confirmed its involvement in the development of the Google Nexus Prime -- the Ice Cream Sandwich-powered successor to the Nexus S -- and now the device's user agent profile has surfaced. The big news here, besides the fact that the name for GT-I9250's UAProf is nexusprime.xml, is the rather surprising (and perhaps disappointing) listing of a 480x800 WVGA resolution.

Now, it's certainly possible that Samsung falsified the information here, under the assumption that this document would be made public; after all, the MMS Max Image Resolution, which is usually the same as the main camera's resolution, is listed at just 1200x1600 -- and we can be fairly certain that Prime will be able to capture images greater than two megapixels.

We've seen HTC begin to omit nearly all identifying information from its pre-release device UAProfs, so it would not be out of the question for Samsung to do the same. And with the rumor mill putting Prime at 720p -- the same as next-generation handsets like the Motorola Droid HD and HTC Vigor -- we seriously doubt that Google's next flagship could feature anything less than a qHD display.