The Bold series has been a favorite with core Blackberry users and many of those users have been wishing and waiting for an upgrade. The arrival of the Blackberry Torch 9800 was received with mixed reviews so Bold users continued to wait. While there is no word of a revamp for the Bold series, for those with beat up Bold 9700s, an upgrade is coming. This coming November 17th T-Mobile will release an upgrade to the Bold 9700 with the Blackberry Bold 9780. No drastic design changes but welcomed changes include the Blackberry 6 operating system, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, 624MHz processor and 512MB of internal memory. For for those who need options, the Blackberry Bold will come in black or white editions.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was just released earlier this week and earlier this month Complex, Lucas Arts and Casio G-Shock unveiled two collaborative watches inspired by the highly anticipated game.  The trio was nice enough to offer one of the watches for us to check out, so we chose the ‘Apprentice’ G-Shock DW-6900. The watch is based on Starkiller, Darth Vader’s fugitive apprentice and main character of The Force Unleashed II. In the game, his galaxy-altering journey would ultimately shape the key events between Star Wars: Episode III and Episode IV.

For those of you who follow Freshness Live, you might have already seen a few teaser live photos from the T-Mobile myTouch 4G media demonstration yesterday. Two of the main selling features demoed include video chats over the mobile network or WiFi and the ability to stream music, photos, videos and even YouTube videos wirelessly to another DLNA certified product such as a TV. In case you are wondering, DLNA stands for The Digital Living Network Alliance which has a common goal of creating standards-based technology to make it easier for consumers to use and share, photos, music and videos. So the myTouch 4G can wirelessly stream music, photos or videos to a DLNA certified HDTV. There are quite a few other interesting features of the new myTouch 4G which will hit stores November 3rd from T-Mobile so check out our review below.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab was one of the early announcements in what has become a very crowded tablet market for this upcoming holiday season. Today, T-Mobile announced that they will be the first carrier in the US to launch the Samsung Galaxy Tab which will be in stores on November 10th. The seven-inch touch screen Tab is Android 2.2 powered and will run on T-Mobile’s super fast 3G network allowing for a boost in web page and video load time. Other interesting specs include the Samsung Media Hub for premium TV and movies and Qik Video Chat with a front-facing 1.3mp camera. The Galaxy Tab will be available November 10th for $399.99 after $50 mail-in rebate with a two year service agreement and qualifying rate plan. For additional info please visit the T-Mobile Tablet site.

With Christmas just around the corner, Barnes & Noble announced today their entry into the color tablet market with the Nook Color. The fairly successful original Nook with 20% of the e-reader market is sticking around for those who just need a simple black and white e-reader priced at $149. The Nook Color is built on the Android platform featuring a 7-inch color touchscreen, built-in WiFi and 8GB of storage priced aggressively at just $249. Other specs include a microSD slot within a 0.48-inch thick body weighing at 15.6 ounces but with the small-body specs and price, B&N only has a WiFi option available. While Android is the underlying software, Barnes & Noble is launching the Nook Developer program to allow Nook specific third party apps on the device. Look for the Nook Color November 19th but pre-orders are available now.

Many years ago (2000) I was one of the early adopters who brought in to the Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC, which also included the introduction of Pocket PC 2000. The OS eventually evolved into Windows Mobile 2003, followed by Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6 and earlier this year Windows Mobile 6.5. Well I didn’t get that far, my relationship with Pocket PC ended after using the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, I never made it to Windows Mobile. Interestingly enough, its 2010, ten years after my first affair with Microsoft’s mobile OS and I am reviewing Microsoft’s newest entry into the smartphone market, Windows Phone 7.

This past Saturday’s Sneaker Con was an amazing success with over 1200 people in attendance including sneaker heads, sneaker head kids, sneaker head moms and dads and there was even an attendee who flew all the way from New Zealand to attend. In addition, the ATF crew also stopped by to support, including DJ Clark Kent, Mayor and All Day ATF all of whom were rocking heat. adidas Originals who was a major sponsor showed off come of their upcoming models and even provided a photo booth to capture some memories. Make sure not to miss the next one in early 2011 but if you missed this one, we have some photos for you below.

Sneaker Con x Dr Jays x adidas Jeremy Scott JS Wings 2.0 T-Shirt

Sneaker Con is tomorrow and the line up is looking pretty good with adidas Originals sponsoring and over 40 vendors selling some of the rarest sneakers from the past two decades. There will be many giveaways from a variety of companies including Chiv Culture, Flud Watches, adidas Originals, Dr Jays, and Sneaker Con will once again have a t-shirt giveaway. So don’t miss Sneaker Con in the SoHo area of New York City tomorrow, Saturday, October 16th, 2010.

SNEAKER CON NYC
151 Sullivan Street
New York, NY 10012

Event Date: October 16th, 2010 | 12PM – 7PM

On Monday morning Microsoft officially announced their reentry into the smartphone business with a new mobile operating system called Windows Phone 7. In the evening they hosted the Microsoft Open House featuring many of Microsoft’s products which are also components in Windows Phone 7. The products include Bing, Windows 7, Windows Live, Internet Explorer, Xbox 360, Office, Zune and mouse and keyboard offerings. Guests were able to test out all of the above products along with a few of the new Windows Phone 7 mobile phones. Be on the look out for the Windows Phone 7 review on October 20th.

Yesterday, Microsoft officially unveiled their new smartphone operating system called Windows Phone 7 and with it came a number of hardware announcements as well. HTC announced five smartphones which should appeal to most customers interested in a new phone, one of them is the above HTC HD7. Since Windows Phone is a new operating system that we have yet to test we will stay away from talking too much about the OS. According to T-Mobile the HD7 is built with the entertainment enthusiast in mind featuring a 4.3-inch touch display which is the largest screen available on a US based Windows Phone. Some of the entertainment pre-loaded applications include Netflix, T-Mobile TV, Slacker Radio, Xbox LIVE and Zune. The hardware specs include a Qualcomm 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 16 GB of internal memory, HD video recording, 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash and GPS functionality. Look for the HTC HD7 exclusively on T-Mobile sometime in mid-November and for more details on the phone visit T-Mobile.

This past Saturday night, Captain Morgan threw a bash to officially welcome Marisa Miller as his First Mate at the Haze nightclub in Las Vegas. The spiced rum maker invited a very small group of bloggers to Las Vegas to help celebrate the occasion with a dinner at Union in the Aria Hotel along with a VIP table next to Captain Morgan and Marisa Miller at Haze. Captain Morgan himself hosted the Saturday night party and mingled with many of the guests at Haze. Freshness was part of the small group, which included nitro:licious, Mademan and CNN, invited to celebrate as well as catch the premiere of “Welcome to the Captain’s World” just after midnight on 10/10/10. The video introduces Marisa Miller as Captain Morgan’s first-ever First Mate and features her in a sword fight to protect the legendary spiced rum. Take a look at a few photos from the party and catch Marisa Miller in “Welcome to the Captain’s World”.

With the launch of the new Windows Phone 7 platform, Microsoft is also launching a funny campaign that pokes fun at the worlds addition to smartphones. While staged, these awkward situations can also be very real due to one’s smartphone usage. The new Windows Phone 7 will try to help smartphone addicts get more done in few steps with something Microsoft is calling the Hub and a Tile interface. Over the next few days, Freshness will take a deeper look into the new entry from Microsoft, for now take a look below at the new Windows Phone 7 commercial.