Release date and price from Best Buy - You saw it here first

[Guest McHale]

Just left Best Buy and spoke to the Cingular rep (not the guy who sells cell phones there but the guy from Cingular who is the B2B guy).

He had the list of phones for September. Nothing exciting. At the bottom of the list is the MPx220. This is exactly what it said on the piece of paper:

October 24 - MPx220 **Exclusive**

Now, to clarify. The Cingular guy said to expect the phone to actually be available maybe the 14th as the 24th was the absolute latest (famous last words).

Price: Cingular is pricing the phone below current v600 price (249 w/ contract). He didn't have a final price but he said maybe 199 - 249 before rebates and the possibility of a 70 dollar rebate on a 2 year contract. He said to expect it at maybe 150 or 200. Who knows? He certainly didn't have a final street price. He did say if you want to buy the phone without contract, it would be 150 bucks more.

**Exclusive** - what the hell does that mean? He wasn't sure if Best Buy would get it ahead of Cingular stores or if they would get a color that the other stores didn't get.

Anyway, nothing I have is absolute concrete. But I at least saw the official poorly copied photo copy that has the date.

Hope that helps some.

-Mc

[Guest ghandlin]

Cool... I'm eagerly awaiting this phone. My old phone died, was hoping it would last until the 220 came out, but it didn't. So now I'm using an old Nokia until this thing comes out.

[Guest McHale]

I know. I forget when it was that I used to count down the days until Christmas, but this brings that memory all back. Only difference is, it's like someone keeps changing the calendar on you so you don't really know what day it is or how many days are left!

Remeber this pre-announcement? Man, I've been like a 6 year old since this first surfaced on the Register. Boy, we've come a long way (and I'd kill for that original SPV in the original colors!!!)

-Mc

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[Guest Jerry Raia]

This is excellent. Now I can dump Verizon :)

[Guest McHale]

2nd source update

http://www.phonemag.com/index.php/weblog/r...tphone_updates/

Cingular will be the first to get the Motorola MPx220 smartphone on October 18th 2004. This is an update from our previous post citing the September 27th release date of the MPx220. We also got word that there integrated camera on the MPx220 has not been improved very much from first release.

[Guest ghandlin]

I'm going to stop into a Cingular store around here and see if they have any information they'll give out.

[Guest McHale]

The regular Cingular stores I've been to didn't have anything but the corporate stores did (well, most didn't know anything about it but there's always that one guy...) and Best Buy has vague info.

BUT...

looks like we're getting close.

oh boy oh boy...

-Mc

[Guest ghandlin]

I stopped into a Cingular store and the didn't have anything definite, but said the earliest would be the first week of Oct. He's eagerly awaiting the phone as well. Got his number, so I'll be buggin' him! :)