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Never to shy away from a good opportunity – Best Buy Mobile now joins the party and lists in a recent advertisment the availability of the Telus BlackBerry Storm on Monday, December 8th. The price listed is $249.99 on a 3-year plan.

If you follow the checkout process it says an “Estimated Release date of December 31st, 2008″… but allows you to Pre-Order this touchscreen and shows the quantity of devices remaining.

However, they then bamboozle you by another 50 bucks and raise the price to $299.99 and say its only available in-store.

In one of the most discrete launches since the Bold and iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm has had its share of stories.

Today there are many rumours flying around about a possible Bell Storm delay until January 2009?? (we still think the 15th of December), and to make things even more confusing a new Bell BlackBerry Storm OS made its way online before the device even launched, then conveniently removed.

However, TELUS seems to be moving forward nicely. Earlier in the week we received official price plans for 1-year and 3-year contracts. We checked out the TELUS site tonight and found a complete published list of their price plans (this is for new clients with a combo of voice, email and data totaling $45 or more, plus it expires December 25th):

3-year: $249.99
2-year: $449.99
1-year: $549.99
No Contract: $599.99

Now we just need an official release date. See the price plans here
(when it loads the page, click “View all our smartphones”… the Storm will load with the released $249.99 price, then click the Storm and you will see the full listing)

To increase sales in Q4 Bell has launched a new offer called “Triple 50″ that is available now until December 24th when you get a 3-year contract. This includes: 50% off rate plan charges for 3 months, $50 in-store accessories credit and 50% off select hardware (Samsung Instinct now $49.95, Samsung Cleo now $24.95, LG Voyager now $74.95 and BlackBerry Curve now $49.95).

With the BlackBerry Storm waiting an official release date, WirelessWave has started to promote the upcoming touchscreen in its latest newspaper ad today.

The ad gives some hope that we will see this soon as it says “A Berry, Berry Christmas”". Located right beside the BlackBerry Bold (priced at the regular $199.99) is the Storm with the now familiar “Coming Soon”.

On another good side note regarding the yet-to-be-launched Storm: RIM has made the new new Bell operating software up for download at BlackBerry.com here. You can read more about this here

All we want is the BlackBerry Storm. However until we get an official date here is another choice for you from Telus. The ZTE TXTster can be yours for $29.99 on a 3-year contract; 2-year contract for $79.99; 1-year contract for $179.99 and outright for $229.99.

This Fastap flip phone comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera with video capabilities, can hold up to 2 GB for some of your music, weighs in at 100 grams and has a talk time of 180 minutes.

More info here at Telus
(Source)

Nokia announced today that RIM has renewed a multi year patent license agreement that covers the worldwide use of standards essential patents for GSM, WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed but consist of an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Nokia. Ilkka Rahnasto, Vice President, Intellectual Property Rights, Nokia said “Today’s announcement demonstrates the success of Nokia’s increased focus on patent out-licensing. This agreement confirms Nokia’s leading role in developing key technologies and the value of our patent assets.”

Future Shop has posted the upcoming TELUS BlackBerry Storm on their website with a price point of $299.99 on a 3-year contract.

I’m sure this will drop when the actual launch date is announced as TELUS released a promo price of $249.99 earlier this week. The site also says the “This product is only available in-store.” (which it’s not yet).

We’ve been given word from one of our Bell insiders named “platinum” that RIM’s first touchscreen device, the BlackBerry Storm, will officially launch Monday, December 15th, 2008.

To date there has been little advertised by Bell and mostly dominated by TELUS. However, we did see a sneak peak with a recent newspaper ad that only stated the Storm will be “Coming Soon”.

The e-mail sent to us said “december 15th will be the official release date with a price of 699$ no contract and 299$ with 3yrs agreement… prices may vary depending if telus changes there’s.”  (That info falls into place with what BGR said yesterday about several price point cards being made)

More info to come soon with updates on this story.

A video was sent into us for what we can expect when the Storm lands into our hands. There has been a great deal of questions about the actual screen on the Storm and how to prevent it from getting scratched.

Watch the video below and see how the beloved touchscreen withstands a Rambo looking knife, restaurant receipt holder and keys. Then end result: not a single scratch: