Mystery Samsung Device Spied Near Poland R&D Center. Sporting 5″+ 720p Display?

Ah rumors. Don’t you love’em? Today’s juicy rumor of the day originates from Warsaw, Poland and features a spy shot of an unnamed, mystery Samsung device. The tipster who sent the image to GSM Arena claims the device in question has Galaxy S design cues as well as a massive 5″+ display. Nothing else is known.

Is this really a next-gen gigantor phone/mini-tablet from Samsung or merely some other device? Given the proximity to Samsung’s own R&D center we’d certainly love to let our minds wonder. But doing so has gotten us into trouble (and let down) a time or two before. Nonetheless, we’ve heard rumors of a massive device with 720p (1280 x 720) resolution coming from someone for quite some time now.

If you’re still on the fence, there’s another shot — with an admittingly weird look — just after the break…

Sprint Announces October 7th “Strategy Update” Event, FAQ Session.

If you’re Sprint, now is a very crucial time to make a move. You just lost a rather important exclusive offering by way of HP’s slashing of webOS as well as an ongoing, slow, costly WiMAX rollout. What do you do? Switch to GSM/LTE technology, that’s what! While we’d certainly love to hear those words coming out of Sprint’s mouth, it’s all pure speculation. Sprint, however, will put rumors to rest and outline their future plans come October 7th at a just announced “Strategy Update” and FAQ session in New York city.

To many, the thought of having to transition an entire network of hardware and consumer-end devices from CDMA to GSM seems like a nightmare. And we have no doubt to believe that it is. But two Canadian carriers have already done it — Bell and Telus — so we know it can be done. And quite honesty, if Sprint wants any chance at being successful (and not just relevant) they need to do something drastic before it’s too late.

Stay tuned. Come Octboer 7th things are going to get mighty interesting.

Sprint Galaxy S II/Epic Touch 4G Press Shot Leaks Out.

Sprint and Samsung may not be making the Sprint-ified Epic Touch 4G (read: Sprint’s Galaxy S II) official until tomorrow evening at 6pm EST, but that doesn’t mean we can’t gander at the official press shots now. See anything you like?

New Phones In Route: Verizon Pushing Up Early Upgrade Dates?

Numerous reports from around the web point to a potential bump in upgrade eligibility dates on Verizon Wireless. According to Kellex over at Droid-Life, an active line of his that was “no where near” being ready for upgrade eligibility (20-month terms on VZW) was “rewarded” today with the chance to upgrade early. We already know there’s a DROID Bionic coming September 8th. The HTC Vigor is also more or less “imminent”. And then of course there’s the iPhone 5 which could hit shelves anytime within the next 1-2 months. All of these phones are big ticket items on their respective platforms that will likely make Verizon lots and lots of money. And they want to maximize every dollar they can get, hence early upgrades. Will you bite?

Rdio Launches Physical And Digital Gift Card Options.

Apple’s iTunes Store just got a more serious contender by way of Rdio. Today the popular music streaming and discovery service announced the availability of both physical and digital gift cards. The former can now be found at a Target shopping center near you in $10 and $25 ammounts while the latter…well…can be found online. Digital gift cards offer a few more options: $10, $25, $50 and $100. Customers can also choose to purchase Rdio gift cards in their own user-selected amount. The best part is that the gift cards can go towards any Rdio service/feature such as music downloads and/or streaming subscription costs.

Digital gift cards can be found at http://www.rdio.com/gift.

What streaming service do you use (if any)?

AT&T’s Chicago LTE Network Gets Pre-Launch Test.

AT&T’s LTE network is alive and (mostly) well in Chicago it seems. A BGR source sent the fellow tech site several images of AT&T’s latest and greatest network in action compliments of an AT&T Elevate 4G LTE mobile hotspot. Said device managed to bring post ~ 13 Mbps and ~ 2 Mbps down/up speeds. For what it’s worth, BGR’s source notes that at no point during testing did the modem have more than 3 bars of service meaning (1) AT&T’s network still has some final issues to get sorted out before a public launch and (2) real world speeds could be better yet.

If you recall, many weeks back when Gigaom got a hands-on early preview of AT&T’s (Texas) LTE network the carrier said they were planning to push “real world” data speeds in their marketing as opposed to competitors who push the theoretical max. Whether or not AT&T will choose to play ball this way remains to be seen. But if they do, it would be a drastic departure (and a welcome one at that) from the norm.

HTC Sense 3.5 Detailed In 5 Minute Video.

HTC’s next version of Sense UI, version 3.5, was detailed rather extensively last week. But if you crave more of HTC’s latest and greatest, a new video has popped up on XDA.cn that is a full five-minute slug fest of everything Sense UI 3.5 has to offer. Whether or not you like what HTC has done to Android, we’re guessing your curiosity is already begging you to hop past the break and check out the hands-on video. Go ahead…