Verizon Selling HTC Thunderbolt for $100 to Select Subscribers

Thought that Amazon's $130 was a good deal for the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon LTE? After all, Verizon's still selling it direct for the premium smartphone price of $250. There's a chance you may be able to score an even better deal, letting you pick up the phone for a cool hundred. 

Verizon customers should check their inboxes, as certain subscribers are receiving notification that they're entitled to a loyalty discount in addition to extra savings through this private sale, knocking $150 off the phone's price tag. Just because you haven't received one of the emails doesn't mean you're completely out of luck for getting this discount; especially if you've been with Verizon in good standing, knowledge of this deal may enable you to convince a sympathetic Verizon employee to let you in on the savings. Heck, maybe you were supposed to be offered this price all along, and the email didn't get through; you won't know until you try! 

If the Thunderbolt's not your thing, Verizon is also offering a free-on-contract BlackBerry Curve, but considering all-new BlackBerry hardware is on the horizon, and what a good price this is on the Thunderbolt, we're feeling the urge to take the Android route in this case. The deal runs through June 12. 

Source: Android Community 
Via: Android Spin

Dropbox Makes Sony Ericsson Deal; Some Users Get Extra Storage

We've looked at Dropbox before, a multi-platform cloud storage app that gives you a free 2GB storage locker you can access from your home PC, work PC, and any number of mobile devices. The companyjust announced a new deal with Sony Ericsson, setting the app up to be pre-loaded on some of the company's phones, as well as an offer that will let some users get extra free storage. 

Now that Dropbox has extended language support, the company is looking to get a foothold in the new markets it now has access to. That means that this Sony Ericsson partnership is targeted at mostly non-English-speaking countries. Supposedly these Dropbox-enabled phones will be available in ten countries globally, including the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, and Italy. While the pre-loading arrangement will cover all those nations, only Dropbox users in Japan on SoftBank will see the deal that increases the storage they get with the free version of Dropbox from 2GB to 3GB (unrelated to the SE partnership). Of course, in any of these countries, you can always get a paid Dropbox account to receive extra storage and features. 

The Sony Ericsson partnership starts now, and will cover current Androids like the Xperia Arc and XperiaPlay. The SoftBank deal in Japan will kick off later this month. 

Source: Dropbox 
Via: Into Mobile

HTC EVO 4G Gingerbread Update Rumored for June 3

HTC's EVO 4G on Sprint is getting Gingerbread, and it really looks like it's getting it soon. An apparently official Gingerbread ROM has already leaked, and we've been hearing rumors trying to tie down just when the update will finally drop. Things finally looked like Sprint was ready to send out the update last week, when the carrier updated its website to indicate that at least new orders for the smartphone would ship running Gingerbread, but it quickly denounced that move as an error. Now a leaked document gives us a new date to expect Gingerbread: June 3. 

According to the leak, as of June 3 you'll be able to check for available system updates and retrieve the Gingerbread package, bringing your EVO 4G up to software revision 4.22.651.2 after installation. If you're waiting for your phone to let you know on its own that an update is available, that supposedly won't be going down until June 6. 

Besides all the standard Gingerbread goodness, HTC is including fixes for the Android SMS-recipient issue, Spanish language SMS fixes, better handling for discharged batteries, and a Gmail multiple-account fix. 

Source: Android Central

Windows Phone Scores High in Readers' Choice Awards

With all the doom and gloom stories about Microsoft, you'd think everyone hated Windows Phone 7. Kind of surprisingly, it turns out the 8 month old operating system has scored quite highly in PC Magazine's Readers' Choice Awards. The Samsung Focus even beat out the Apple iPhone 4 for the top spot as bestsmartphone on the AT&T network with an overall score of 8.7 versus the iPhone's 8.4. The only other smartphone that got such a high overall score was the Verizon iPhone with the same 8.7. Windows Phone as a platform came in second place with an overall score of 8.1 just underneath Apple iOS's score of 8.4 and a couple points ahead of Google Android's score of 7.9. It would seem that at least in terms of PC Magazine's readership that people are quite satisfied with Windows Phone. Only time will tell if that satisfaction can be maintained over the long run and of course translated to better sales.

Check out the full listing of scores here and let us know what you think in the comments.

Source: PC Mag

Previously Leaked Google's Next Nexus Smartphone Is A Fake

Everybody was excited about the leak we recently saw of an alleged upcoming Google Nexus smartphone(possibly the Nexus 3 to welcome Ice Cream Sandwich) but unfortunately we have to disappoint you and say we think it's fake! 

Take a look at the image above; it's a zoomed in snapshot of the original image that was leaked. You can see how the shades the glass casts on the actual display end at one point, both left and right. The portion below the natural shaded screen is also much crisper sharper. It's the point where we think the screen ended and Photoshop started. Most probably there was a part someone wanted to cover by enlarging the screen and "selling" the smartphone as an all-screen one. 

Techhog's findings -- the site that actually ran the initial image -- seems to support our beliefs. They managed to dig up a picture of allegedly the same smartphone as used in the purported Nexus 3 image and it appears to have, just like any regular smartphone, buttons at the bottom (and capacitive ones at that). 

We'll also tell you we think it's an HTC Incredible S -- or Incredible 2 -- judging by the speaker grill on the top as well as the camera placement on the top-far-right. 



Image: Techhog 
Thanks: Karan