Just got a tip from Greg Gebhardt, who is not only a frequent poster on several BlackBerry sites, but a guy with a proven ear to the ground when it comes to BlackBerry stuff.
He says that he has just heard from a buddy of his who works for BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion in Canada.
The scoop: yes, ther will be a Sprint 8702, but it will be CDMA not iDen. "There will be NO iDen 8700 series, " Greg informs me that his friend told him, "but there will be a Sprint unit."
No date, although the talk now seems to point to September...
1. This is a normal practice for Sprint, as I've seen them do it twice now with significantly new technology releases. First with the Treo 650, they showed the device on their support site "by accident". I think this was sometime in June, and the device showed up in September.
Next was with the Blackberry 7250, again a picture appearing on a support (help) site. I don't recall when this one was, but I think it was in May. The device was released in November.
There doesn't seem to be any upside to releasing a device before the Christmas buying season as so many contracts are tied to that time of year, and they need to drive large retail volume during that period. That is, unless they decided to place a higher value on customer satisfaction. :)
I've left them for now, primarily due to these marketing practices. They are always near last with a new device, and are not forthcoming on when the device will be released (or in the Treo's case, if it even exists).
Posted at 5:01PM on Jun 30th 2006 by Chris Connelly