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Not wanting to feel left out and as a result of the TELUS release… Bell bumped up their launch date and has announced the availability of the BlackBerry Storm at select Bell Mobility stores in the Greater Toronto Area.

In addition, the Storm will be “widely available tomorrow at stores nationally” is somewhat true but in reality you’ll see a full rollout of the Storm during the first week of January 2009. Bell stores were informed to continue building their in-store “pre-sold” waiting list which will be delivered in the new year. We got word that all inventory should be sold to consumer clients, while corporate clients will get theirs in January.

Bell has posted the full rates on their site now: No contract is $699.95; 1-year is $649.95; 2-year is $549.95 and 3-year from $249.95 with a minimum $45 per month voice and data plan.… however the online stock is completely sold out:

“Temporarily out of stock online. Order yours now. You will be billed in full today and your Storm will ship in early January. If there are any issues with your order, we will contact you by email. Please ensure that you use a valid email address and check your filtered folders (junk mail) regularly.”

Better run to your local Bell store to pick your Storm up!

Wade Oosterman, President of Bell Mobility and Chief Brand Officer said “Smartphones just got better at Bell as earlier today we sold our first BlackBerry Storm. Bell is offering an unbeatable 3G BlackBerry line up with the addition of the BlackBerry Storm. The BlackBerry Storm delivers a robust combination of multimedia capabilities, improved business tools and international roaming capability – all supported on the proven and trusted BlackBerry platform, and all available with a few simple taps of the screen,”

The Bell BlackBerry Storm has a 3.25″ display, full HTML browser, expandable memory up to 16GB (8GB micro SDHC card is included), 3.2 megapixel camera with built-in flash, autofocus and video capabilities.

More here

With the limited amount of BlackBerry Storms available (we here 4000 for all of Canada), Telus announced the availability of RIM’s first touchscreen this morning, and within a couple hours a notice on their site said: “Currently on backorder, please allow 1-2 weeks for delivery. temporarily out of stock”. You’ll have to run to your local Telus store and snatch one up quick if you want one.

From the launch party earlier this week Rizwan Jamal, SVP of TELUS Consumer Solutions said: ”Limited quantities of the BlackBerry Storm Smartphone from TELUS will be available in select TELUS stores across Canada soon! Full product rollout will take place in January”.

You might as well go get your bid in over on eBay

Koodo Mobile has launched a new holiday promo that is actually good timing.

If you’re looking to purchase the LG Shine or LG KEYBO both priced at $225, or with the Tab it’s $75 you’ll walk away with a free LG HBM-770 Bluetooth Headset (retails for about $90). Good deal actually considering all the recent news about a possible ban of cellphone use while driving.

Also, if you buy online they include free shipping. More info here

Go get ‘em Canada.. while they last! TELUS has officially released the BlackBerry Storm and you can go to their site and purchase this beast.

Available for a 3-year plan at $249.99 is only available to new clients activating a combination of voice, e-mail & data plans totaling over 40 bucks… the promo ends December 25, 2008. You will also score an 8GB card filled with music and videos by Stars, Broken Social Scene, The Stills, Constantines, Kevin Drew, Jason Collett and Brendan Canning.

This 3G touchscreen comes loaded with a 3.2 megapixel camera (auto focus, flash, and video), music player, GPS, dimensions are 112×5 x 62.2 x 13.95mm and weighs in at 155 grams. This is also available on other plans for 2-year: $449.99; 1-year: $549.99; No Contract: $599.99. We will have our review soon.

Also, if you want to get this for the holidays you have to place your order before December 17th. There are limited quantities of the TELUS Storm. From the launch party earlier this week Rizwan Jamal, SVP of TELUS Consumer Solutions said: ”Limited quantities of the BlackBerry Storm Smartphone from TELUS will be available in select TELUS stores across Canada soon! Full product rollout will take place in January”.

More info here

**UPDATE** – With a limited number available they have put the word on their site that “Currently on backorder, please allow 1-2 weeks for delivery. temporarily out of stock”

The Conference Board of Canada released its Autumn 2008 Canadian Industrial Outlook which states that Canada’s telecommunications industry is growing at its slowest pace in more than a decade – with an annual growth of about 2.3% over the next 5 years.

The decline is blamed on the “economic uncertainty”, new wireless entrants nd price competition.

Michael Burt, associate director for the Conference Board, said in an interview about the telecom sector “In the near term the economy is going to be the more pressing issue… sales growth will improve a little bit, but profitability is still going to be under pressure because of increased competition… we don’t expect to see mass layoffs,”

Burt continues to say “We’ve seen really strong productivity gains in recent years, The industry’s been able to increase sales without having to hire as many employees. We expect this productivity to continue, so with slower growth in sales, this means employment growth will be fairly weak for the industry in the near term. We do expect to see slowdowns in sales because people will cut back a little on the services that they’re demanding, but people will still want their phone. They will still want their Internet access.”

Read the full story here

We checked out and confirmed that the OS will be version 4.7.0.76. Much improved from the earlier releases we’ve seen. Over the next few days we will go in depth with this device and report back our findings… everything from cutting and pasting, video, pics, e-mail, calendar, games, battery life, call reception.

Let us know what you would like to see also.

More TELUS BlackBerry Storm info… looks like they have again updated their site with a cute holiday image that says: “To Guarantee delivery before December 25th, you’ll need to place your order no later than December 17th”.

Since the launch party last night we have heard stores have started to receive the limited quantities for this initial launch. Expect a release date soon

It was not that long ago that Telus released the LG Dare at $99.99. It seems that they are starting the December push and have listed the touchscreen for a wicked deal of $0.00 until December 25, 2008. This is available for new customers who sign a 3-year contract with a “$20 Bundle or higher and keep the feature on their account for at least 3 months”.

With all the flurry of BlackBerry Storm giveaways last night… this was bound to happen!

eBay seller “bloodydiamonds” based in Toronto has taken the free and generous gift of a unreleased BlackBerry Storm 9530 from the launch party and put it on eBay.

Starting bid is $499.99 and ends December 14th at 10:55:55 EST… get your bid in before the actual launch!

After the TELUS BlackBerry Storm launch party last night we took some time to unbox RIM’s first touchscreen. We’ll have a full review shortly… until then, check out the video below and see the contents of what you can expect when you buy this:

This 3G touchscreen comes loaded with a 3.2 megapixel camera (auto focus, flash, and video), music player, GPS… ande will be available soon with a price points of: 3-year: $249.99; 2-year: $449.99; 1-year: $549.99; No Contract: $599.99. Remember to check out our video from the launch party here.

In case you are wondering: OS version 4.7.0.76