And yes, it includes a Verizon-branded cowbell.

[Thanks, Tim]

This little phenomenon has been going on ever since lines were wrapped around buildings as consumers waited impatiently for the iPhone 3G, but even now, original iPhones are fetching wild prices on the secondhand market. In a weird twist of economics, Apple's iPhone actually maintained the majority of its value even after its successor hit the market. Why, you ask? Put simply, first-gen iPhones purchased from eBay or other pre-owned resellers arrives sans an AT&T contract, and of course, it can be (relatively) easily unlocked to work with some other carrier. PSA: if you're still sitting on your old iPhone for no apparent reason, now would probably be an excellent time to test the market.

[Image courtesy of IFOAppleStore]

Not that you won't be able to buy this thing from carriers here shortly, but there's just nothing quite like being the first on your block to own a new handset. For those with cash to burn and an insatiable desire to play with RIM's forthcoming Kickstart 8220, look no further than eBay. Up for auction right now is an unlocked version of the aforesaid mobile, but it looks as if the final bid will end up well over a grand. Good luck (being patient).

[Via CellPhonesMarket, thanks ghengis]

In this culture of instant gratification, it's comforting to know that there's at least one source out there for Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 well ahead of the official release. An eBay auction expiring this Saturday is offering up (or claiming to, anyway) the opportunity to be the first kid on your block with that sleek, sexy bundle of metal and Windows Mobile -- if, of course, the price is right. It looks like a sale price well above $1,000 is a foregone conclusion at this point, and there's no guarantee that the auction is even legit, so you'd better really want an X1 more than the next guy before plunking down that kind of cash for a prototype. We'll wait, thanks -- not because we're patient, but because we're not old money. Now excuse us while we go sob quietly to ourselves in that corner over there, okay?

[Thanks, ginger.al]

Okay, so officially, there's no such thing as a Touch Diamond that can hang on 850 or 1900MHz HSDPA networks -- key word there being "officially." The FCC knows better than that, and at least one eBayer looking for a little extra spending cash seems to as well. A fellow with a so-so 92.9 percent feedback rating claims to have the most elusive of Touch Diamond models in his possession, but wants to sell it and wait for the Touch Pro instead (can't say we blame him). Of course, from his perspective, it also helps that this thing is worth many times what it'll be worth in a few weeks, months, or years -- whenever it is that someone gets around to releasing this puppy in a slightly more official capacity. As always, caveat emptor in these sorts of situations.

[Thanks, Moe]

One of Sony Ericsson's more creative designs of recent memory, the W350 might be a whole lot closer to grubby American paws than many might have expected. Up for auction on eBay at the moment is a "lightly used" W350a variant in white featuring a silver highlight on the music controls; that in itself isn't particularly interesting, until you take a gander at the display and see a nice little AT&T logo silkscreened on the bezel. The listing's page doesn't give any clue as to when non-rich people might be able to get a subsidized W350 from the AT&T store in their neck of the woods, other than to state the obvious point that the "phone has not been released in the US yet, and you will not find this beautiful color anywhere else." So if you're really bent out of shape about taking delivery of this thing, you might want to dive in on the auction -- you never know if it's going to go the way of AT&T's ill-fated K850.

[Thanks, Bernard]

The UK's O2 has apparently given six employees the boot and are investigating another 20 after it came to light they were using their 20 percent staff discount to buy iPhones and sell them on eBay. While no exact number was given, apparently they bought "noticeable quantities" of everybody's favorite -- and now discontinued -- set, to help pad their retirement fund. Of course, with handset sales likely stagnating while everybody waits on the iPhone 3G, you'd think O2 might have given them a break for clearing out all that old stock.

[Via RCRNews]

Now that developers have had a fair crack at the iPhone SDK for a few months, plenty of companies were ready today to showcase their wares alongside Stevie. Among them:

• eBay. Pretty much everything you'd need to do from a desktop browser can be done through eBay's iPhone app: bidding, searching for items, My eBay (so you can see how the sale of your old iPhone's going), watching items, and the like. It's free, but since you're giving eBay money every time you make a transaction, we'd expect it to be.
  
• Loopt. Already a staple on a couple carriers, Loopt's location-based services allow friends to keep tabs on one another. It'll be free at the launch of the App Store.
• TypePad. Following some of Six Apart's other moblogging efforts, the iPhone version of its TypePad client will allow realtime uploading of photos taken with the iPhone's cam. It'll also be free.
• Associated Press. It seems the AP wants to turn us all into unpaid correspondents, offering an app that will allow users to upload footage.
• Band. A collection of virtual instruments for creating music from scratch right on the iPhone. Probably not the most effective platform for creating songs if we had to guess, but hey, cool nonetheless!
• MLB.com. Video baseball highlights, real-times stats and scores.

We look at sellers of unreleased phones on eBay much the same way we look at the FCC's device approval database: fun for window shopping, but that's about it. We're not sure we'd personally part with enough cash to find out whether the seller of this particular HTC Shadow II for T-Mobile actually has the thing to sell us, though we can totally understand why well-heeled folk might be willing to give it a go (and if we had enough money to buy a phone straight off an FCC lab, we'd probably be living somewhere in a private archipelago with no phone service to start with). The long-rumored smartphone seems to change colors every time we see it, with this latest pack of photos suggesting a glossy black front with dark red gradient accents -- not bad, we'll admit. Like the original, the Shadow II packs WiFi and a 2 megapixel camera, but when it launches later this year it'll come out of the box with Windows Mobile 6.1 and a decidedly friendlier industrial design. Oh -- and hopefully, a friendlier price than a functional prototype is currently commanding on auction.

[Thanks, Fernando]

This unlocked Blackberry 9000 was spotted on eBay just before the auction mysteriously ended. The seller says the phone is unlocked and will "Not be released until August 2007" -- we'll guess he / she is a little unclear as to what year it is. However, said seller promises that this particular unlocked phone is actually in stock now and ready to ship for the lucky winner. Listed features (according to this auction) include: 3G, Edge, WiFi, and Bluetooth, as we've seen elsewhere. There's no telling how legit this is, and the seller clearly pulled the auction for some unknown reason, but there do seem to be at least a few of these floating around. Peep the pictures in the gallery here for some photographic evidence.

[Thanks, Ezra]

Seem to good to be true? Yesiree, we're betting it is, too. Nokia's Aeon is a concept, not "Not even released for sale in U.S. yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!." If we weren't clear, he / she is trying to steal your money, so please don't bid. Of course, some may ask about the rather unconvincing renders that are being used to prop up this bridge of deceit, and one needs only check the dodgy shadowing and reflection to see that these just can't be real -- and are the same pics offered by Nokia. So in short, give mercerwholesaleelectroncs8888's -- with 4 feedback -- auction a peek, have a laugh, and hope that one day we'll actually be able to pick one of these up -- for less than $999.

A few scratches around the screen. A keypad that doesn't light up. No original materials included -- just a wall wart for charging. Doesn't exactly sound like a dream of an eBay find until you realize what this is, the totally unreleased Motorola Z9 slider that hasn't been seen or heard from for many, many moons. As the seller points out, the Z9's basically a slider version of the RAZR 2 (right down to the bizarre burgundy shade of AT&T's V9) so if sliders just really do it for you, here's your chance to get in on a little piece of unavailability. The seller also claims that the phone won't be out in retail channels for "a couple more months," though with six or more months already behind us since we first heard of it, who's counting?

[Thanks, Lincoln]

We think the emphatic "For Parts ONLY" in the description of this well-loved E90's eBay auction pretty much says it all.

[Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]