T-Mobile Germany's product page still claims that it's not yet available, but reports are filtering in that RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8900 has started to ship to customers in the land of Oktoberfest, lederhosen, and over-engineered automobiles. That doesn't do North Americans terribly much good, unfortunately -- Germans use a QWERTZ keyboard layout, so even if you could get the sucker unlocked, you'd accidentally be typing "zes" instead of "yes" for the rest of your life -- so go ahead and give into the envy for a few weeks while you wait for some more launches to go down. We'll keep you updated, we promise.

[Via CrackBerry]

Beep beep, outta the way, incoming RIM product blitz! Seriously, this is like a high-powered corporate executive's dream -- not one, not two, not three, not four, but five major product launches out of Waterloo in the span of a few months' time. Latest out of the gate is the 8900 Curve, successor to the 8300 series featuring a heavily-upgraded 480 x 360 display, microSD support to 16GB, WiFi, 3.2-megapixel cam with autofocus, and integrated GPS. Sadly, network data tops out at EDGE speeds -- but if you really need more, we s'pose that's where the Bold comes into play. No word on any launches outside of Bavaria just yet, but on T-Mobile Germany, the 8900 is available "mid November" (which is basically now) for €4.95 (yes, that's not a typo, 4.95 euros) on a 24-month contract.

[Via IntoMobile]

German carriers who've complained that the country hasn't doled out enough 3G spectrum to meet their data-heavy needs are going to get their collective wishes granted next year with another auction, this time in the 1.8GHz and 2.6GHz ranges. Thing is, they'll need to bid like they mean it, because the government is allowing new players outside the current four -- T-Mobile, E-Plus, O2, and Vodafone -- to enter the race. If there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's two entirely new UMTS bands -- but if it means a whole lot more 3G in Bavaria, we guess we're going to have to deal.

[Via mocoNews]

The list of carriers around the world with designs on selling both the Bold and the Storm is a pretty small list indeed. Actually, as far as we know, there's only one name on it right now -- Vodafone -- and a new page on Voda's German site confirms that the Storm is getting ready to unite with its keyboarded sib for a one-two punch of zesty BlackBerry flavor in the coming months. Verizon's presumed exclusive means that we won't likely see a similar lineup materialize in the States any time soon, but even from afar, it's got to give you a warm fuzzy to see two RIM models in a tearful reunion, doesn't it?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Controlled LTE trials have been going pretty well of late, but the first test "under everyday conditions" has just gone down in Germany. We're pleased to say that everything went off without a hitch, as a connection using the next-generation (4G) mobile communications standard was maintained while inside a moving car traveling at around 42mph. Aside from the thrill of not dropping in and out of Pidgin at random, experimenters were able to pull downloads of up to 170Mbps and upload at up to 50Mbps. According to Hamid Akhavan, head of T-Mobile, it will still be 2010 (at the very earliest) before any of its markets go live with LTE, but at least we're moving in the right direction, eh?

[Image courtesy of ChrisHarrison]

Just how much is wide VGA worth to you? Amazon thinks the answer lies right around $890, apparently, now that its German site has the HTC Touch HD listed for €619. That puts it a mere 20 euro under the Sony Ericsson X1, which Amazon Germany also lists, meaning that the bump from 3.2 to 5 megapixels and the loss of the QWERTY keyboard basically work out to an even exchange. We normally don't put a lot of credence in retail pricing on prerelease products, but Amazon's a pretty big player to ignore -- and they're accepting preorders at these prices to boot. So: all things being equal, HD or X1?

[Thanks, derliebewolf]

Sony Ericsson finally came clean with that September 30 launch date for the XPERIA X1 this morning, and now the carrier situation is starting to resolve itself -- as previously hinted, Vodafone will launch the sleek WinMo slider in the UK, and both Voda and O2 will have it in Germany. O2 UK hasn't confirmed anything yet, and we still haven't heard from any carriers in the third launch country of Sweden, but we'll keep you posted over on Engadget Mobile as soon as we hear anything.

Feel that heat, Touch Pro? That's right -- the Great QWERTY Smartphone War of 2008 is officially gearing up for kickoff now that Sony Ericsson has announced a firm date for the first handful of lucky countries to be scoop up the mighty XPERIA X1. Sweden, Germany, and the UK will be the inaugural launch sites come September 30, with no fewer than 32 more on tap in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America for the fourth quarter of the year. North America, China, Australia, and Russia are also listed as committed launch regions, though dates for those will be announced "in the coming months" -- scary verbiage considering that they weren't even willing to slap the Q4 label there. 2009's a long way off yet, and if there's a Touch Pro in front of us... well, let's just say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, if you catch our drift.

The problem with selling licenses for spectrum -- any kind of spectrum -- is that there's an implicit assumption that the investment a company's going to make into buying the airwaves and building out the infrastructure necessary to take advantage of it is eventually going to pay off. For the winners of Germany's DVB-H license, though, the economics simply don't make sense; the country's carriers stone-cold gave up on the concept once they lost the license bid, instead turning to bundling DVB-T receivers to steal free signals designed for plain ol' TV reception. The winning bidder, Mobile 3.0, had intended to sell users on packages costing a handful of euros a month -- but "free" is a pretty powerful word, so even if there's a marginal battery performance disadvantage with the DVB-T setup, it's going to be virtually impossible for any pay service to fight it, especially when carriers are putting zero effort into making sure DVB-H tuners are on board their handsets. As best as we can tell, T-Systems' DVB-H trial wrapped up in December, so yeah, that pretty much spells the death of the so-called standard in Bavaria. What say you, EU?

[Via mocoNews]

Germany wanted $6.2 million in research subsidies back from Nokia, and in addition to the "tens of millions" that the company has already relinquished after the highly-disputed Bochum plant closing, it'll be coughing up another €1.3 million ($2.04 million) to hopefully close the door on the matter. Said payment will be addressed to North Rhine-Westphalia, which was quite angry after the handset maker decided to hack 2,300 jobs from Germany and relocate operations to Romania for "lower labor costs." The sum here is in addition to the €20 million "Growth for Bochum" foundation that the outfit started, but apparently that show of goodwill didn't really change the hearts of those already bitter.

[Via PhoneScoop, image courtesy of Reuters]

Alright, can someone help us out with a little primer on German law here? California-based sipgate offers up a VoIP client for the iPhone that -- for the moment, anyway -- requires a jailbroken handset to run. It goes about its business on WiFi airwaves, so from the carrier's perspective, no harm, no foul, right? Not so much. T-Mobile Germany takes issue with the app, claiming that it's enticing its iPhone users to jailbreak -- a violation of its contract terms. Furthermore, the contract disallows VoIP of any kind, WiFI or otherwise, which pretty much makes sipgate public enemy number one in T-Mob's eyes. They've gone ahead and sent out a nasty little cease 'n desist, which sipgate says it plans to fight all the way through the court system if that's how T-Mobile wants to roll; meanwhile, it's still providing service and says that "for the time being [its] users are safe." Fight the good fight, guys.

[Via TUAW]

Sorry, T-Mobile yanks, this one actually goes out to your German cousins; we still don't have a Bold commitment stateside from anyone other than AT&T. It's cool, you've got the WiFi Curve, remember? But yeah, back to T-Mobile Germany for a second -- those guys have become the first anywhere to slap a price tag on RIM's latest and greatest, charging €219.95 (about $348) on the carrier's Max S plan and going down from there if you want a heftier voice / data package. T-Mob claims that interested parties will see the Bold pop up in July, which should give you enough time to pick out a nice, rugged case.

[Via Mobile Bulgaria]

Update: Commenter AT points out that TIM already has the Bold pegged at €469 (about $740) -- but like the rest of the world, it's not available just yet.

It's been a long, long time since we've heard from Germany's "Future Store" -- the ultra-futuristic German grocery store that might have sprung directly from the Sprawl trilogy -- but they've got a new feature we thought you might be interested in. Shoppers in the store can now use camera-equipped cellphones (i.e., cellphones) to snap pictures of item barcodes, and then download the information at the checkout when they're finished shopping. The system totals all of your purchases into one big, nasty barcode which you then scan and pony up cash (or cards, or fingerprints, or magical rainbow juice) for. It's unclear how to store handles shoppers who don't scan everything they've got in their cart, but if it's anything like our favorite books, it's not pretty.

[Via PHONE Magazine]

The concept of exchanging voice minutes for obligatory ads pushed to handsets is a business model still very much in its infancy, but Blyk -- which currently has a live MVNO in the UK and plans to launch in the Netherlands later this year -- must be feeling good about its chances right now, because it has announced a planned expansion into the German, Belgian, and Spanish markets next year. Key to the service's success is recognition by advertisers that customers actually give a crap about the highly-targeted marketing material being pushed to them; Blyk claims that click-through rates are rockin', which is probably providing the impetus for the planned expansion. We're still not so sure we'd trade 217 text messages and 43 voice minutes a month for the privilege of being blasted with spam targeted promotions, but if they're somehow able to boost the allowance into the range of a typical plan and maintain profitability, they could be sitting on a gold mine.

[Via mocoNews]

Remember that U800 we peeked in the middle of last month? Turns out, that very mobile is the one pictured above, though it now has an official moniker to round things off. In an attempt to migrate the Spirit of Soul (Samsung's words, not ours) to the candybar design, the Soulb was born. The handset checks in at 9.9-millimeters thick and features a 3-megapixel camera (with Power LED flash), document viewer / editor, web browser, multimedia player, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio (with RDS support), 1GB of internal memory and a microSD slot just in case. It's also noted that the Soulb will be available in Soul Grey, Platinum Silver, Metallic Black, Soul Pink and Amethyst Violet for an undisclosed price, but things aren't looking too swell for North Americans. Germans will get first dibs when it lands in "early June," while just about every region save for NA gets it shortly thereafter.

[Via phoneArena]