I’m going Storm2 crazy over here! So much to talk about today with Storm2 reviews popping up left, right and center. And now, I stumbled upon an official release from RIM and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), making the Storm2 official in seven European countries, PLUS South Africa! Of course, no exact pricing launch dates were specified in the release, but I can tell you that the UK and Ireland will get their paws on it first… Followed by Germany, Netherlands and Spain. All of these launches are lets say, ‘coming soon’. France, Italy and South Africa will receive the Storm2 ‘in time for Christmas’.

For more, you can check out the whole release at MarketWire.

Note: In case you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to read our BlackBerry Storm2 Review. It’s jam-packed full of good stuff (and a little bit of awesomeness).

The latest rumours have pointed to an October 14 release date (i.e. tomorrow) of the Verizon (NYSE: VZ) BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Storm 2, and between dummy units, BOGO flyers, and accessories arriving in stock, it’s seeming very likely.  Across the pond, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) will likely be launching the device around the same timeframe,  and lately we’re hearing specifics about pricing (£35/month on two-year contract). If we start seeing the same kind of promotional materials show up at Vodafone, it’s safe to say the Storm 2 (or Odin, if you’re feeling nostalgic) will at least be announced before the end of the week. Best Buy might not get the BlackBerry 9550 until the 25th., which could indicate a later date for when we see the device proper on store shelves.

If you haven’t had a chance to get a close look at the Storm 2, it’s RIM’s second touchscreen smartphone, rocking Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headphone jack, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 360 x 480 capacitive display, 3G (EV-DO or HSPA, as the case may be), and OS 5.0. The SurePress clicking touchscreen has apparently been overhauled since the original Storm and renamed TruePress. Based on a few teardowns, folks think that the Storm 2 has four piezoelectric pads beneath the surface that can lock the clicking mechanism. So far, we’ve only seen that happen when the phone is turned off, but we’ll have to wait to see if a retail unit uses the technology in any other ways.

In any case, it’s an exciting time – does anyone think that they’ll give this bad boy a shot, or did the first iteration turn you off of SurePress for good?

[via Engadget, CB, BlackBerry Rocks, TechRadar, pic]

Following on recently available pre-orders, the fabled Sony Ericsson Idou has just landed on British shores as the Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) Satio! The touchscreen Sony Ericsson Satio is the Swedish-Japanese phone maker’s first Symbian S60 5th Edition smartphone and it oozes high-end sex appeal. We had a chance to put hands-on the Satio back when it was known as the Sony Ericsson Idou, and it’s one helluva device – especially since it runs the so-old-it-hurts Sybmain platform.

Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) UK is the only carrier to offer the Sony Ericsson Satio at the moment, but Orange has the Satio tagged as “coming soon.” Underneath that high-resolution 3.5-inch touchscreen lies all the high-end smartphone bits that we’d expect to see from a 12.1-megapixel cameraphone monster – DNLA-compatible WiFi, GPS, and 3G data. The glossy-black finish highlights the 12.1-megapixel camera (with Xenon flash) while the 3.5-inch touchscreen plays video with aplomb. Did we mention it sports a 12.1-megapixel camera? Yeah, it’s awesome.

Vodafone is offering the Satio for free when purchased with qualifying 2-year contract. Have at it!

If you’re not lucky enough to live on the British side of the pond, keep yourself busy with our Satio hands-on gallery.

[Via: TechRadar]

Even though we still wait for the official launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Germany and HTC have made a new firmware available for HTC Touch Diamond2 users with the latest version of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s mobile OS. I’m not sure is it a pilot/testing program or what, but if you’re in Germany, you should definitely upgrade your all-touchscreen WinMo device to grab not only the updated Windows Mobile, but also the updated TouchFLO 3D user interface. I’m talking about the version which integrates weather information with home screen’s clock, hence saving more screen’s real estate. Plus there are other benefits you’ll see as well, but that’s another story.

Anyway, if HTC and Vodafone’s German subsidiary are going this route, the rest of the world won’t have to wait for too long to get their WinMo 6.5 fix, or at least that’s me thinking out loud…

[Via: slashphone]

There’s nothing better than a blurry shot of an unreleased handset. Unless it’s a blurry picture of an inventory screen listing an unreleased handset’s launch date – now that’s the stuff. WMExperts has gotten a hold of a decidedly fuzzy image of an inventory list that shows the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 (Vulcan) coming to Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) on November 6th, a date that falls in line with previous expectations.

There’s not much more to go on here, so we’re going to tentatively mark down the first week of November as a possible launch window for the all-new XPERIA flagship.

[Via: WMExperts]

Yep, the game is over with exclusivity for O2 (NYSE: TEF) – for 2 years at least, they had the uber-device to themselves, and now they gotta share!

Orange announced that it had got its mitts on the device yesterday (here), but now Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) have gone live with a very similar “register your interest page” here.

So now we are just waiting for T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) and 3UK to put their pages up – my bet is that T-Mobile comes first, and 3UK might even choose to leave it for now, and focus on INQ perhaps (new devices, including Android, just around the corner)…let’s see!

Vodafone has announced a deal with Warner Music which will make Vodafone the first global mobile network operator to offer its customers over-the-air access to the combined music catalogue of the world’s four largest music companies in DRM-free format.

Vodafone customers will continue to enjoy their current download service with rights to use tracks they have paid for just once across all of their personal music devices without restriction – but now with the additional benefit of having a far greater number of tracks to choose from. Furthermore, Vodafone and Warner Music will work together to offer a range of mobile music products such as value-added album bundles that contain additional multimedia content.

“Warner Music’s addition to our mobile DRM-free catalogue is really great news for our customers,” said Pieter Knook, Vodafone Internet Services Director. “The response to the DRM-free offering in all the markets where it has launched has been incredibly enthusiastic. Our customers love music and they love the flexibility that DRM-free on mobile gives them.”

“We’re pleased to be expanding our partnership with Vodafone, who share our vision of how to help foster the growth of mobile music and create further opportunities for connecting fans with artists by offering premium album content anytime, anywhere.” Eric Daugan, SVP, Digital Business, Warner Music Europe.

Warner Music’s wide-ranging inventory will start to go live for mobile in DRM-free format straight away, and will contribute to a total library of over 1 million tracks. DRM-free downloads via mobile are already available to Vodafone customers across many European markets with more to come.

For details on exactly which countries get the DRM-free format, and where the Warner catalogue will be distributed, click here.

As if the launch of Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) 360 (see here) wasn’t enough, Vodafone are going big on a talent search for the best Mobile Widgets!

At its international Developer Event today, Vodafone is announcing the launch of a two-phased competition to find the most innovative and useful mobile widgets, giving two victorious developers the chance to bank up to €100,000 in prize money. Vodafone will outline the widget capabilities of the new Vodafone 360 mobiles at today’s Developer Event in front of content publishers, web and mobile developers from around the world.

Split into two phases (the first phase now and second phase during 2010), the Vodafone Appstar competition has a combined prize fund of €1,000,000 which will be shared across eight of Vodafone’s largest European operating companies to encourage innovation in the mobile application and widget space. The participating eight countries are: UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

In the initial round of each phase of the competition, developers from anywhere in the world can submit widgets compatible with the new Vodafone 360 mobiles to any one of these eight markets via a competition website. A panel of experts from the local Vodafone operating company will then select three winning entries based on three criteria:

• User experience
• Innovation
• Value to the customer

The developers responsible for the top three mobile widgets will be awarded prize money of €25,000, €15,000 and €10,000 for coming first, second and third respectively. The €25k winner will also have their entry submitted into a Pan-European competition to decide the best of the best. The eight competition winners’ widgets will then be put to the public vote within the participating eight countries and the winning developer will pocket a further prize of €75, 000, bringing their total prize money to €100,000. The runner up will win a total of €50,000.

Software developers will be asked to write applications based on the latest Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) Software Developer Kit found at www.jil.org. For full details of the competition, please visit the website at www.jil.org/vodafone/appstar.

And that’s basically it! Extending the Vodafone 360 impact in one easy swoop, by targeting developers – clever move, I like it – and the result should hopefully be some really decent Widget apps…

For more on Vodafone 360, click here.

Ha ha. See what I did there with the title? No? Nevermind.

Anyway, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) has announced it’s new ‘360′ service, which in simple terms, is a social networks aggregator that sync contacts between your phone, the InterWeb, and your computer. But why have me tell you when Vodafone can say it so much better:

Vodafone 360: bringing your world together like never before. A single address book for all your contacts from your phone, Facebook™, Windows Live Messenger™ and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Talk™. One place to get status updates and stay in touch with your friends. And a wide range of Apps, Games and Music for you to enjoy. In one experience, accessible from your phone, PC and Mac.

So it’s not just social networking – there is also maps, and an App store too apparently.

Even better than that, there are going to be optimised handsets – oh yes!

First of all there is the Vodafone 360 H1, which is a device packing some serious clout – think 3.5″ OLED screen, 5MP camera, and 16GB storage, and you are not too far off. Of course there will be further Vodafone 360-specific devices, and also those that are compatible, including the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 6730, and Nokia N85 (I’m thinking that’s going to be a native app on those devices then…)

Overall, it does look like quite a compelling service – I’d imagine once all the initial hassle is out of the way getting the thing(s) configured, it will probably work pretty well – of course, if Vodafone UK PR want to send me a device and pre-configured service, I’ll be able to tell you all in more detail

You can find out more about Vodafone 360 here.

The second Android device to be using HTC’s custom Sense user interface will be finding its way to Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) in October, according to their online store. If you didn’t catch the launch, the Tattoo has a 2.8″ QVGA touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, 4-way directional pad, FM radio, and 3.5 mm standard headphone jack, making it a littler, but respectable cousin to the Hero. The latest specs also confirm that the Tatto will be launching with the 1.6 Donut update, of which we’ve seen some features. There’s no price point on the Tattoo just yet, but you can sign up for availabilitiy updates.

[via Phandroid]