Latest News in mobile world

As it was expected, AT&T has recently started rolling out visual voicemail updates to its BlackBerry Bold users. The voicemail gives users the ability to store up to 40 messages at a time, and add numbers to contact list from voicemail. A more detailed list of features is available here.

Phone Arena came up with what looks to be the most complete set of Samsung Instinct HD pics to date, including UI photos, comparison shots and more. Click the source link to check out the whole set for yourself.

There is enough indirect evidence that Sprint will soon be releasing the HTC Hero, but how soon remains unclear. While October is the most favorable period, according to Engadget "Best Buy Mobile locations will be taking $50 deposits for the phone starting on September 13 with an SKU of 9510013".

With the instinctQ on the horizon, we're not really interested in this presale.

Palm looks to be aiming at Chinese market: according to Financial Times, "China Telecom is planning to offer the Palm to its subscribers". It makes perfect sense, considering that Telecom's competitor Unicom is planning to launch the iPhone, which is a serious entry. China Telecom is a CDMA carrier, so Palm Pre is a natural choice for them seeing that the CDMA version of the handset is already available from north American operators Sprint and Bell.

The new Maemo 5-based Nokia N900 Internet tablet has been officially announced and will be available for purchase starting this October for €500 (pre tax and pre carrier subsidy). Since it comes with 1700MHz band support, the most likely carrier to be selling it stateside is T-Mobile USA.

Nokia N900 specs:

• Maemo 5 OS;
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE, 900/1700/2100MHz UMTS/HSPA;
• 3.

Virgin Mobile announced that it will soon be offering the low-end LG Rumor 2 messaging phone. The device comes with a QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth and 1.3Mpix camera. It is also available from Sprint, which is the future owner of Virgin Mobile.

SprintUsers has recently posted some off-screen photos showing release dates and pricing for some low-eng handsets scheduled to be released soon on Sprint. Let's get to the most interesting part, shall we?  The long-awaited HTC Touch Pro2 is in the list and ready to be launched on September 8 at an unsubsidized, rebate-free price of $599.99.

There's also a link to a PDF file, the internal "Quick Reference Brief" for the Touch Pro2, part of which includes a comparison chart where the Touch Pro2 meets face to face with the yet unreleased AT&T's LG Monaco and HTC Warhawk, as well as Verizon's Omnia II.

New unofficial firmware updates are currently available for some of the BlackBerry handsets. You can find download links for each of them below:

BlackBerry Storm 9530 - 5.0.0.154 - browser is very quick, YouTube runs faster, the handset is a bit more responsive, but there are still some bugs.

BlackBerry Bold 9000 and Curve 8900 - 5.

Verizon stores have started stocking shipments of the new Motorola Entice W766. The phone won't be available until its predecessor's (W755) stock is depleted.

Improvements over the W755 include larger external and internal (2.2") displays, 2Mpix camera, Bluetooth 2.1 support, 8GB microSDHC support, and microUSB 2.0 data port. There will be touch-sensitive buttons for music control, ringtone mute/vibrate, and Bluetooth on/off, however the internal keyboard doesn't appear to have changed much.

Ai.rs blog has posted the list of specifications of the upcoming mid-end HTC's Mega smartphone. Not bad, and not too impressive, but at a reasonable price point it will make a great purchase.

Here's the list:

• Window Mobile 6.5 OS;
• Quad-band GSM/WCDMA/HSPA support;
• 3.2Mpix camera;
• microSD slot;
• 802.11 b/g;
• Bluetooth 2.