With the 8130 and the 8830 already in Telus' BlackBerry lineup, the natural next step for any CDMA carrier to take is to launch the recently-spied CDMA Curve, of course. Indeed, it looks like Telus is stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing here, thanks to a sharp-eyed HowardForums member who captured a shot of Telus' site showing the 8330 on sale for $199.99 CAD (about $203) on a three-year contract. 'Course, like a mirage, the mysterious 8330 vanished into thin air -- its time hasn't come yet -- but we expect it'll be back in the mix in short order now.

Separately, we've heard from another tipster that both the Curve and a Samsung U720 can be found in metadata associated with Telus' media player. What's the U720, you ask? We're not sure, but they're calling it the "Flipper" and it looks suspiciously like Verizon's U740, alias "Alias." No word yet on when exactly the Canadian carrier will commit to putting these new pieces up on its site for keeps.

[Thanks, Tal and John]

As expected, Sprint has announced the SPH-m620 "UpStage" dual-faced musicphone today, giving Sprint a decided "wow" factor in its lineup -- for the moment, at least. Manufacturers seem to be turning to unusual form factors in an effort to gain some differentiation in a crowded high-end and specialty phone marketplace, and the UpStage fills the bill nicely with a full side devoted to traditional phone activities -- "calls, text messaging, and contact management" to use Sprint's verbage -- while the entirety of the flip side takes the form of a traditional MP3 player; a button press switches between sides. Naturally, the phone offers a microSD slot for up to 2GB of external storage, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and stereo Bluetooth, while an included 3.5mm jack adapter lets folks use more traditional headsets if they so choose; even cooler, incoming calls are announced via text-to-speech while you're jamming out. Also included is a Music Manager app for sideloading tunes to the phone via USB and a unique "battery wallet" boosting the phone's stamina for playing music up to a solid 16 hours or 6.3 hours of talk time (up from 2.5 hours talk time without) -- you sacrifice a bit of girth from the phone's normal, svelte 1.73 x 4.07 x 0.37 inch form, but for music junkies, the tradeoff may be worth it. Simultaneously with the phone's release in early April, Sprint will be offering 99 cent over the air (nice!) music downloads good on its entire Music Store catalog, which we reckon is just perfect for a phone of the UpStage's nature. Look for it to hit shelves for $149 on a two-year agreement with a $50 rebate available.

So it won't be called the "Flipper" or the "Ultra Music" -- no, it seems Sprint wanted a name all its own for the very unique m620 musicphone from Samsung. When it launches at CTIA this week, the two-faced handset will get slapped with the name "UpStage," which in our opinion really doesn't convey the craziness of the phone's form factor appropriately -- but does give a nod to its unusually strong audio capabilities. As the Flash presentation points out, the UpStage's key features include touch-sensitive music controls, a 1.3 megapixel cam (which is shared with the phone side's face), stereo Bluetooth, built-in speakers for rockin' out the old-fashioned way, and microSD expansion. We're hoping that everyone is going to be able to waltz into their friendly local Sprint store in the next few days and pick up an UpStage of their own, but either way, expect some serious hands-on action from the floor of CTIA!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

We think we've got a pretty good -- nay, perfect -- idea of what this is, but Sprint's doing its darndest to keep us all guessing about its upcoming handset that's "redefining flip." We can't really say we blame them; Samsung's curiuous two-sided musicphone is pretty innovative even on a bad day, and it's likely in Sprint's best interest to ride the hype for everything it's worth here. Anyway, the latest marketing antic has us looking at an official countdown to the Samsung "Flipper" m620's reveal at CTIA (at least, that's our best guess as to what's going on here) toward the end of this month -- a phone Sprint promises will offer "a perfect trifecta of voice, music, and unique, stylish form-factor." Their words, not ours, but if the buzz the m620's GSM cousin has been generating translates well to the CDMA version, they may not be too far off the mark.

[Thanks, tuolumne]

Authenticity is tough to verify here, but what we've heard from an inside source here regarding Sprint Nextel's launch estimates for the first half of the new year -- including some devices that have already hit the streets -- seems totally plausible, if not probable. Samsung's been tapped to provide three: the m300 "Vivace," m510 "Fantasy" (apparently a minor update to the m500), and -- most interestingly -- the m620 "Flipper," which we've now heard from multiple sources will be a CDMA version of the nifty F300 Ultra Music Edition, scheduled to launch with Sprint on April 1. Sanyo brings a total of five to the party, two of which have already launched: the 3200, 7000, 7050, Katana II (hopefully sporting EV-DO this time), and M1. Sierra Wireless and Novatel will team up to bring three more data devices to market, the 595U, 597E, and Express (the XV620, we're guessing?). Moto's on the hook for three devices, the Q (wow, we haven't heard it called "Franklin" in ages) and a pair of iDEN / CDMA hybrids, the ic502 and ic902. Rounding out the offerings will be the 6800 -- an HTC Titan variant -- and the previously-unmentioned Palm Sherlock (a CDMA version of the 680 or 750, we'd wager). Not a bad lineup considering this all theoretically goes down in the first six months of the year, eh?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

We're always up for getting to the bottom of corporate conspiracies to shield our eyes from upcoming products. This time the culprit is Samsung (along with its partners in crime, Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint), which sent out a rough copy of a press release introducing new products to be showcased at CES; in it, they made mention of three phones that are now mysteriously missing from the final release on Samsung's site. Our good friend Sascha Segan over at Gearlog keenly picked them out: the i760 "Robin" for Verizon, the "Spear" for Cingular, and the "Flipper" for Sprint. Now, we've previously heard of a 3G (albeit HSDPA, not EV-DO) Pocket PC going by the i760 monker, but the Spear and Flipper are both totally fresh to us. Sascha has since picked up on some intel that the Flipper might be the F300, but it's all speculation at this point. Care to elaborate, Samsung, or are ya going to make us wait for CES?

Just when we were ready to give the award to Samsung for the most complicated phone form factor, Sony Ericsson outdoes their Korean counterparts in a just-revealed 2004 patent application aptly titled "Flipper Phone Configuration." The concept appears to accomplish essentially the same function as a swiveling clamshell but with additional drama surrounding the conversion between modes, using a pivot point halfway up the sides of the display to allow 180-degree rotation. At least Samsung is trying to bring some additional functionality to the table with their "sliding clamshell" patent; where's the innovation here, fellas?

[Via textually.org]