FreshPhoneNews.com

The HTC Leo has been out of sight for a while now, but recent leaks into the world of bloggers have it that the HTC Leo will now officially be the HTC Touch HD2. A leaked document has shown that the HTC Touch HD2 will be heading for T-Mobile soon. Of course there’s no release date, but with Windows Mobile 6.5 out and about, how long could it really be? So who’s holding out for the 1GHz pumping, 5 megapixel beast?

via

Motorola has come out with its much awaited Android handset, the Motorola CLIQ for T-Mobile, and Motorola DEXT for the rest of the world. Pretty much goes without saying but Motorola needed this addition to its lineup, which was getting mundane by the hour. Anyhow, the customized Android platform is what we will now call MOTOBLUR. As for specs, thankfully, there is no disappointment.  We’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera with video recording, UMTS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi, QWERTY slide-out keyboard, 3.5mm headset jack and then some. Now if there is multi-touch support, we’ll be rolling in cute bunnies.

via

It’s always good to see the error of one’s ways. Which is why we’re all support and applause for T-Mobile which has announced to withdraw its paper billing fee. Earlier T-Mobile had announced that it would be charging users who opted for paper billing a small fee. The rationale was to encourage paperless billing. Needless to say this move was not met with any sort of enthusiasm. Many users choose paper billing over the paperless kind for a bunch of really valid reasons, and considering companies are out there to be creating ease for their customers, penalizing those who don’t do your bidding is a great way to give your competition more business. In the words of T-Mobile;

“    Since the announcement we’ve heard everything from kudos to concerns about the move to paperless – especially from our customers who today are receiving paper bills at no charge.

So, we’ve decided to not charge our customers a paper bill fee for now. Instead, we’ll be taking more time to determine the fairest way possible to encourage people to go paperless.”

Let sanity prevail. Sure it’s highly possible to motivate people to switch over to paperless billing, but the way to go would some kind of incentive. And we are very happy to see the paper billing fee see the reject bin.

via

The carriers have been had, for a change. According to a Wall Street Journal article, eight men have been indicted for swindling T-Mobile USA and AT&T out of $22 million handsets. The swindlers included 2 cell phone shop owners from Brooklyn, NY, and used customer data to order the cell phones. The culprits used dealer’s access to the carrier systems and got the customer data, ordering the cell phones on the customer accounts.  They have been formally charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft surrounding the scam. If found guilty and convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison on the conspiracy charge alone. Lesson: crime doesn’t pay.

via

RadioShack, now known as The Shack, has just come out with its much awaited budget messaging phone for T-Mobile subscribers. The messaging phone was to be with The Shack from its first day and that’s exactly what happened. So what handset are we talking about here? The oh so very affordable Samsung Gravity 2 for a humble $29.99 post mail-in-rebate and a 2-year contract. The Samsung Gravity 2 features a side-sliding QWERTY along with a 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, Bluetooth and microSDHC support. Great deal if you’re a light user but love to text your thumbs off, all you have to do is make peace with the metallic pumpkin color.

via

Finally, the HTC Touch Pro2 has landed itself neatly on T-Mobile’s website. The greatest touchscreen and QWERTY handset ever will bring you a 3.6-inch WVGA restive touchscreen display, sliding QWERTY keypad, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, Wi-Fi, GPS, 512MB ROM/288MB RAM, microSDHC support and a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7200A processor, all come together under the umbrella of Windows Mobile 6.5 and Touch FLO 3D, it’s so pretty it brings a tear to your eye. The only possible problem may be the insane price tag of $349.99 on a 2-year contract that would make the most devoted HTC loyalist choke. If there’s going to be a price drop later on, we don’t know. And how much could they cut the price tag if #350 is where it starts from? Sad Tmo, very sad.

via

Alright folks, time to take your magic marker and put a big circle around September 15. According to a leaked Best Buy pre-order flyer, the mid of September is when you get your beloved Zune HD. For those looking to make faces at the iPod Touch crowd with something, you have a partner. We already have a guess at the pricing, and we’re pretty sure that if Redmond wants to keep the Zune ball rolling, it will stick under-pricing the iPod Touch.

via

Who else could steal Walmart’s thunder but Amazon. While Walmart was busy patting itself on the back for giving us all a go at the BlackBerry Curve 8520 for $49,Amazon just wiped the floor with this obviously generous price tag by offering the Curve 8520 for … $0.01.  that’s right, Amazon wants your pennies! Want to get the BlackBerry Curve 8520 on contract, from the comfort of your home, all for ¢1, now you can.

via

Among the most anticipated works of technology from Nokia are its Maemo-powered smartphones. A total Nokia original the Maemo sounded like a very promising and the first handset installment codenamed Rover had us all sitting at the edge of our seats.  Well finally the FCC has come through for us with an official ‘okay’ for the Rover. The Rovers seems to be headed for T-Mobile, and for the last time, it is not an Internet Tablet, this is your very legitimate smartphone. According to the FCC documentation, the Maemo 5 smartphone features;

• Quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, tri-band WCDMA (900/1700/2100)
• Bluetooth + EDR
• Wi-Fi
• FM Transmitter
• Slide-out QWERTY keypad
• Nokia BL-5J 1320 mAh battery

via

The image you see above is neither funny nor representative of our grandparents’ generation. The fact that a few senior citizens like to go online and check out what’s new on FPN is hardly reason to believe that the majority of the retired population is right up thereon the tech-savvy board. The fact is, Generation X may have adopted new technologies and Gen Y was practically born to them, but grandma and grandpa simply aren’t. Then there is of course the significant number of people who can’t even afford a computer, and for all these the corporate world needs to have consideration; they are still paying customers and they built the economy in their day. Sadly though, seems like T-Mobile USA is actually levying a paper billing fee on those subscribers who don’t opt for e-billing. A fine sum of $1.50 is on its way to all Tmoblers come September 12th. A notification of the charge has been sent in the last bill. There isn’t even any nominal attempt to pass this off as an environmental-friendly gig. Nor is Tmo giving a discount to those who choose online billing, oh no, it’s levying a fat ass (okay maybe $1.50 is not a fortune, but what exactly are these people paying for? years of loyalty? Puh-lease) penalty of $1.50! Not liking this one bit. And if you don’t like it either and are affected by it, make your voice heard by contacting T-Mobile and the FCC

via