Today, October 14th, is the big day. The Apple iPhone 4S is now available at the three major US carriers: AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. All three carriers have their own advantage. Sprint is the only one with an unlimited iPhone 4S data plan, while AT&T claims to have the highest download speeds thanks to its HSPA+ network. If you choose Verizon, you’ll be getting the best nationwide call coverage.

Specs wise, the iPhone 4S spots that same 3.5-inch Retina display we saw on the iPhone 4, but with better hardware this time around. It has a better 8 megapixel camera with 1080p HD recording and the same dual-core A9 processor found in the iPad 2. The iPhone 4S runs on Apple’s latest mobile OS, iOS 5.0. Probably one of the coolest new features is Siri, your own personal assistant. Basically, you give Siri a task and she completes it. You can check out our in-depth look at Siri by our own Staska here.

If you were lucky enough to be one of the many who pre-ordered their iPhone 4S through Apple or through a carrier, congrats. If you weren’t as lucky, we have a full list of the places you’ll be able to go and grab an iPhone 4S . The obvious choice would be the Apple Store, although we don’t know how long it will take until they are sold out. Your next best bey is the carrier of your choice, although all three have been sold out online, they have all stated that they will carry some stock. RadioShack, BestBuy, Sam’s club, and Target are all good retail alternatives. If you plan on getting your iPhone 4S today or already pre-ordered yours, let us know how long it took you to get it and what your initial thoughts are on the device.
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Initially known as HTC Bliss, the HTC Rhyme has been finally announced by the Taiwanese company, which unveiled that the smartphone would be first released by Verizon Wireless in the US.

Verizon will offer the Rhyme starting September 29 (for an unknown price), while other markets – including Europe and Asia – are expected to get it in October.

As previously reported, the HTC Rhyme comes with Sense UI 3.5, and runs Android Gingerbread. Its other features include: a 3.7 inch WVGA display, HTC Watch, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, and a 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash.

s you can see in the photo above, there will be lots of exclusive accessories for the HTC Rhyme, including a docking station, a “Charm cable” (which is “connected to the phone and has a protruding small cube that glows” to warn users about incoming calls or messages), a “sports armband”, and a Bluetooth headset – most of them dressed in the same color as the handset (lavender in Verizon’s case, although we’ve seen a sliver version of the Rhyme, too).
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Although we still have to wait for an official confirmation on this, it looks like Sprint will finally get the chance to sell Apple’s iPhone (starting next month – October). We’ve already heard that Sprint could offer both the current iPhone 4 model, and the yet to come iPhone 5, and now we’re hearing even more details.

According to Bloomberg, Sprint wants to provide unlimited data plans to customers who will buy the iPhone. This way, the third largest US mobile carrier hopes to lure users from Verizon and AT&T, which don’t offer unlimited plans at all.

At the moment, Sprint’s unlimited plan (data and voice included) costs $99.99, and I assume the iPhone 5 unlimited plan will be priced similarly.

Sprint is expected to launch Apple’s new iPhone 5 in mid-October – just like AT&T and Verizon.

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A few days ago you might heard that the BlackBerry Torch 9850 might become available at Verizon Wireless, and today we have confirmation of that rumour.

With that being said, the BlackBerry Torch 9850 will become available for purchase at Verizon online on the 8th of September, and after one week on the 15th of September you can buy in on the stores. The price of this RIM smartphone is set at $200 with a 2-year contract.

In case you forgot about the technical specifications of the BlackBerry Torch 9850 we can refresh your memory by mentioning the 3.7-inch touchscreen with trackpad navigation, a 1.2GHz processor, and a 5-megapixel camera with flash that can record videos at 720p HD. Other details include a pre-installed microSD memory card of 16GB (which can go up to 32GB) as well as WiFi and bluetooth 2.1. Last but not least the Torch 9850 comes with “Global Ready” that lets users make use of wireless voice and data services at 3G speeds via UMTS, HSPA, GSM, GPRS and EDGE.

We’ve already seen Verizon’s BlackBerry Bold 9930 rear its head in a leaked video and now, it looks like it’s finally gone all official on us. The slim, QWERTY-equipped handset has just popped up on Verizon’s site, where users can now order one for $250 on a two-year contract, or $510 sans contract. Its specs, meanwhile, coincide with what we’ve already heard, including that 2.8-inch, 640×480 VGA touchscreen, 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor and .41-inch thickness.

The 9930 also comes equipped with BlackBerry 7 OS, bringing voice-activated search and speedy browsing capabilities to the palm of your hand. No word yet on when the phone will arrive in actual stores, though rumor has it that August 25th could be the big day. [techcrunch]

It looks like that Verizon will have Samsung Stratosphere for the new line up very soon. The network carrier has made a support page for the upcoming smartphone and then quickly removed it. There is a possibility that the Samsung Stratosphere is another name for the rumored Samsung Galaxy S II 4G LTE phone. Unfortunately, there is no official confirmation from Samsung at this time. We’ll keep you updated.

These BlackBerry 7 devices are finally starting to pop-up everything, sporting their carrier brand. We’ve seen the Torch 9850 with the Verizon brand on the hardware, and recently the 9860 for AT&T. Now, the Torch 9850 has stepped out again, but this time for Sprint. It has been pretty obvious that Sprint should be getting the Torch 9850, as it has shown up in a lot of leaked inventory slides. Nonetheless, this image is just one more step to signify it will be hitting the carrier sometime soon.

The Motorola Droid Bionic is probably one of the most delayed handsets ever. It debuted at CES in January of this year and has since been postponed numerous times due to the need to implement various enhancements, which we now know involved not only internal spec boosts but also a complete facelift and tummy tuck. But still, the device may not arrive until early September, so we hear.

The word on the street from multiple sources is that the Droid Bionic will be arriving on September 1. It’s further supported by some insider information received by Droid-Life that came with the above photo. They claim that Motorola reps have already informed Verizon to expect the Droid Bionic by early September.

Additionally, the source notes that the device still has the same 4.3-inch screen, as opposed to the rumored 4.5-inch screen, but also has far less ghosting than the screens of the Droid X2 and the Droid 3. Also worth noting was that the device feels much lighter and more responsive than expected, which is likely due to the internal upgrades and the sleeker design.

To see other images of the Droid Bionic, you can take a look at the leaked product shots for the handset’s accessories from Amazon. The device is expected for Verizon’s blazing fast 4G LTE network, which recently just expanded coverage to several new markets.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is the company’s most popular Android phone and the world’s first PlayStation certified smartphone. This device was announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 in Barcelona. It runs on the latest Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) Operating System and comes with a 4 inch capacitive multi-touch display, 1 GHz Scorpion ARMv7 processor, 5 megapixel camera and much more. This handset was released in the US, exclusively for the Verizon Wireless customers. The Xperia Play ships with 7 amazing games including Madden NFL 11, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Crash Bandicoot and Tetris.

Motorola DROID 3 has gone from a leak to a confirmed smartphone, but here is a damper – the smartphone will have a locked bootloader, at least according to forums manager Matt on the Motorola Support Forums earlier this morning. According to Motorola, the company will be rolling out software updates which are able to unlock bootloaders sometime later this year, so we guess you can forget about a summer rollout and enjoy doing some other stuff while waiting.

As the DROID 3 sports an OMAP processor, chances are quite high that it will feature eFuse built right inside, meaning your handset will end up as an expensive paperweight if you have the guts (and stupidity, we would say) to unlock the bootloader. Still, this does not mean that you can’t root (letting you gain access to parts of the operating system which you normally can’t, so that other custom software which aren’t necessarily malicious can run, such as those from the homebrew scene the smartphone if you apply the same theory with the DROID X.

Motorola sure ain’t making it easy for you to love them when it comes to simple unlocking and rooting of your phone, that’s for sure.