TmoNews

Update 6/8/08: Just an FYI, but we should be coming back real soon. No, really… we mean it this time

Avid T-mobile fans, TmoNews has some unfortunate news. Well, unfortunate for you, we’re pretty excited actually. Thats right, we’re going on vacation! This means, we’re sorry to say, that we will not be able to bring you T-mobile News on the blog everyday. However there is a bit of an upside here. TmoNews Forums will be up and running strong, and you should definitely head over there to check out T-mobile news, discussions, and more. Click below to head on over to our oh-so-awesome forums!

Normally we wouldn’t bring you this much news on one phone, but we have to admit, the somewhat-sexy 5310 definitely has impressed us much more then we expected. Again, in case you for some reason don’t know, we can expect the Nokia 5310 to be released on the 28th in Purple, Red, and Orange. Check the column to the right to see exactly how long until the phone is available* to purchase. Pictures include unboxing, accessories, and part of the Nokia music promotion also starting on the 28th. Check Nokia’s Promotional Site for the terms, conditions, and more.

Update: It turns out you do NOT have to purchase a new phone to enter into the contest!

Update 2: It looks like if you want to pick up a 5310 now, you can head over to Best Buy and pick one up. Sounds like they have had them there for the last two or three days.

*New phones are usually available when T-mobile stores open, and available at 12:00 PM on T-mobile.com. The countdown shows when we expect the phone to be available online.

Great pictures BreatheTmobile!

Click here for more images

[More]

This is pretty big news T-mobile fans. It looks as if T-mobile will be launching an Online Portal that may be an addition to MyT-mobile.com, or may be its own separate site containing all of your online T-mobile life. This new service will have four major components, which all have their own section on the home page.

1. MyAlbum
2. MyContacts
3. MyFaves
4. Mobile Backup

1. MyAlbum will be a much needed upgrade of T-mobilePictures. Besides great visual changes, MyAlbum will offer easy picture searching, easy album access, slideshows, and simple drag and drop functionality to add your thumbnails to whichever album you chose. There will also be some kind of easy sharing ability with picture services such as PhotoShack, MySpace, and Snapfish.

2. MyContacts will offer a nice alternative to any online contact book you currently have. With easy syncing via Mobile Backup (Which we will get to soon) your online contacts and mobile phone will stay up to date. Again, drag and drop functionality allows you to easily put contacts into groups, (IE Family, Work, Friends) as well as providing simple navigation through all your contacts. Options include search by name, sort by first name, last name, cell number, groups, change the page layout, and more. Our guess is that T-mobile will allow you to import contacts from other address books such as Outlook, Yahoo, or Google. To go with that, you will also have a group of contacts that will be listed under MyContacts but will not be put on your phone when MyContacts and your phone are synchronized.

3. MyFaves on this new online portal will likely not provide anything too new or exciting. With the expected launch of MyFaves 2.0 coming, you will be able to keep track of your 5, or 10 if you chose, MyFaves via this portal. It will provide visual improvements to the current MyFaves online portal. Options include viewing your Fave5 (or 10), Changing your MyFaves, changing/editing your Fave’s icons, or sending a message to your MyFaves.

4. Mobile Backup will provide a few improvements from the current Mobile Backup system T-mobile has in place. Some recant T-mobile phones have been coming faded and unselectable options such as Backup Calendar and Backup Notes. When backing up your mobile contacts, you will see these contacts listed under the MyContacts section of this page. Mobile Backup should provide some solace to those geniuses that have dropped their phones in the toilet, or jumped in the pool with their phone in their pockets (Don’t worry, we’ve all done it too).

Sources tell us that this new Online Portal and Mobile Backup will be out near the end of the May, or beginning of June. We’re definitely looking forward having our mobile life all in one, easy place. More to come soon, including screenshots!

Thanks Dave, and all that sent this in.

Join the discussion on our forum

Well what do we have here, the very first spy shots of the T-mobile 5310 in the wild. Based on whats popping up from a member on our forum the phone has started to arrive in stores preparing itself for the release on the 28th. TmoNews obtained some spy shots of the black/orange variant, but for those looking to color coordinate their phones, three variants will be released on the May 28th. The pictures show the black/orange, however a black/purple and black/red variants will also be available. On the 28th this phone will be available at the awfully low price of $49.99 with a 2 year prison sentence contract. Not a bad offering given the fact that it comes with a 1GB memory card, though the phone can manage 4GB of your music pleasure. Its an edge offering only (dodging rocks) so for those still waiting for some 3G love, keep waiting.

Thanks for the pictures BreatheTmobile!

Update: Turns out these pictures are of the RED Nokia 5310, not the orange as stated above.

Check out in the wild pics below.

Our friends over at hiptop3.com were fortunate enough to get their hands on the manual for the upcoming sidekick gekko. All in all it looks to be just solidifying details already uncovered. Look forward to a 2mp camera, changeable shells, video capture and a George Foreman grill. Again, there really isn’t much uncovered by these pages that wasn’t already detailed here but its nice to know that this brings the likelihood of a new sidekick one step closer. I have to mention though and I’m sure most will agree, there doesn’t really seem to be any drastic physical changes in the design. I know I was looking forward to a sidekick that would fit in the palm of my hand and use telekinesis to send text messages but alas, looks only to be a slight modification of current offerings.

Head on over to hiptop3.com for the rest of the pages available for your viewing pleasure.

Well here we go all you flex pay lovers, starting May 26 - July 31 all new flexpay activations will receive a $25 dollar coupon toward the purchase of equipment. T-mobile is going to launch what they are describing as a promotional campaign designed to increase awareness of the flex-pay system. Unfortunately here is the real kicker: this offer is available in the Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston and Philadelphia markets only. Yup thats right, 5 whole cities get this special promotional offer. Obviously we hope for a larger, nationwide launch of this sometime in the near future but as of right now, the information we have pertains only to those markets. Pretty weak if you ask me, but maybe its a test for something big, much bigger. Whatever could that be?!

This promotion is exclusive to the Retail and Retail Partner Sales channels. Bonus points to anyone who catches pictures of the street teams which will be out and about handing out these flyers. I want some pictures on our forum pronto! Also, keep your eye out for specially marked vehicles advertising this no contract loving. Apparently door flyers and work-site lunchtrucks are also going to be around town. Door flyers rock, they always make me want to run right out and spend money.

Anyways since its almost 2:00am and I’m past the point of paying attention to what I am writing I am going to give you some viewing pleasure. No no, not the kind that requires a quarter.

This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds if you don’t check out our brand new discussion forums.

The Nokia 5310 will be released on May 28th. But that is not all, on the same day, T-mobile will launch a huge Nokia Music Promotion. With T-mobile and Nokia teaming up, you can’t really go wrong, right? Customers who purchase a Nokia 5310 on or after May 28th will receive free downloads of themes, wallpapers, and other customizable features for their new music phones. But wait folks, thats not all! If you purchase a 5310, you will be able to head over to a promotional website, enter a number from the 5310 box, and be entered into T-mobile and Nokia ran contest. What does the winner get, you ask? Well it seems like there is not going to be one winner, but well over 10,000 winners (Could this be true?) of the grand price, which is a $100 Ticketmaster gift card, to bring yourself and a “Fave” to a concert. By the way, that is NOT the 5310 pictured above, here are some pictures of the upcoming device:

For those complaining about coverage and network problems with the Sidekick III, here comes a solution (Hopefully). Between Today (May 19th) and May 30th, Sidekick III users should be receiving text messages asking you to backup your contacts. In addition, you may want to backup your pictures and media as these may also be deleted during the update. As Hiptop3 reported, this is what is included in this OTA (Over the Air) update:

* GSM network feature enhancements
* Enhanced USSD Support
* Retry option for failed Text Messages
* Enhanced SIM PIN protection
* Optimized PLMN scan algorithm to improve network registration time when returning to good coverage
* Faster PLMN searches

So on the user-end, coverage should improve, and when going from an area without coverage, to one with coverage, you should see less time before you receive a signal. Hopefully this doesn’t wear out the battery even more when no coverage is available, like many phones do. T-mobile is really pushing the fact that this update should lower the number or dropped calls, but we’ll be the judges of that. After you have backed-up all of your contacts and registered to receive the update, you wont have to wait too long. Updates will be sent out starting June 2nd, and the last update will be sent on June 13th. Anyone who receives this update, let us know if you see any differences.

Click Here for T-mobile’s instructions regarding the SK3 Update.

Remember the Gekko we’ve been telling you about? Well it looks like we can add it to the list of phone to hit T-mobile before August. The label you see above was provided to us by the wonderful FCC, who passed this device yesterday. Unfortunately you’re not going to be surfing with speeds any faster then EDGE on this new Sidekick. Boy we’re excited for a 3G Sidekick to come out though…and hey, while your at it, add some UMA. Now we’re dreaming though…

Anyways, expect the SK Gekko to drop near the end of July, or beginning of August. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open for further info on this, for all you avid SK users. Enjoy!

Well this is one that you may have to take with a grain of salt, but lets hope for the best! Between June 16th, and August 1st, T-mobile has 16 phones slated for release, or should we say 16 device launches. The document from which we snatched this data is indeed internal T-mobile, however usually it is more of a good guess of what will happen, rather than an set-in-stone depiction of upcoming launches. That said, 16 launches, a color refresh, and Curve and Sidekick software updates are all things to get excited about! Off the top of our head, here are a few of the upcoming devices we know of:

• 1. Nokia 5310
• 2. Nokia 5610
• 3. Shadow II
• 4. Nokia 2760
• 5. Nokia 1208
• 6. Nokia 6301
• 7. Shadow III (Damn, did we say that?!)
• 8. Samsung T339
• 9. Samsung T229
• 10. Blackberry Bold
• 11. Blackberry KickStart
• 12. Motorola W450
• 13. Motorola Rokr E8

That leaves three unknown releases, given that all the listed devices will in fact launch in the next two months, which we highly doubt.

Now if only we could tell you about that awesome addition to MyT-mobile.com…but of course we can’t because we don’t want T-mobile to lose their edge in this competitive wireless industry. Update: Looks like this is coming sooner then we thought, look for an article in the next week!

Discuss on TmoNews forums