One of the things that has bothered me about pretty much all the wireless plans out there is that they round minutes up. If you go into the next minute even for a second most plans charge you for the whole minute.

Sprint and Walmart have announced a new plan called the Common Cents plan that is a prepaid wireless plan that does the opposite of most calling plans. It rounds down to the lowest minute. That means a call lasting 1:45 seconds will only cost you the price of a minute.

Sprint and Clearwire are the only two companies that are using WiMax as their 4G service right now. There are a number of people around the country in larger cities that can get WiMax 4G service.

So far, these users have only been able to get WiMax on computers with modems, but a new 4G handsetfrom Sprint called the HTC Evo is set to go up for pre-order this month according to a leaked screen shot. The screen shot came from an employee computer system at The Shack.

If you, like many of us, suspected that both Sprint and Verizon Wireless would pick up RIM’s BlackBerry Bold 9650, well, the former has already released a press release stating the fact. Starting on May 23rd, Sprint fans can pick up this smartphone for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and 2-year contract.

Apparently it will be available in “all Sprint sale channels,” with a 480 x 360 resolution display, BB OS 5, Wi-Fi module and 3.2 megapixel camera. We’re expecting Verizon’s announcement any time now.

Samsung and Sprint have teamed up to launch a new green mobile phone to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The Samsung Restore features a body made from post consumer recycled plastic, plus 84 percent of the Samsung Restore is recyclable.

Some specs include a slide out QWERTY keyboard with an optical joystick, a two megapixel camera, a microSD card slot and stereo Bluetooth. The Samsung Restore will be available on Sprint this summer in two colors, Midnight and Limeade.

This phone looks pretty good-looking considering that it’s made from 19% recycled plastic. 87% of the phone can be recycled when it’s life is over. Keeping with the green theme, it also uses a low energy charger. Some other features include a 1.3 megapixel camera, a media player, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth, a speakerphone, QWERTY keypad and a slider form factor.

Look for the LG Remarq to be available on May 9 for $20 after a two year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate.

[New Launches]

Some new info has leaked regarding the BlackBerry slider and according to the latest rumors, the device failed the early diagnostic testing 4 out of 5 times, which obviously isn’t good. If the rumor holds up, the BlackBerry slider may be headed for Sprint, since the device had a Sprint logo.

There is a GSM/HSPA version of the device and the models are called the BlackBerry 9900 and BlackBerry 9930. It looks like the HSPA version will support 850/1900MHz UMTS bands which would make it compatible with AT&T and Rogers’ 3G networks.

I hear ya, Amazon’s Kindle DX is big. It is, but it’s not the biggest any more. The Skiff Reader is the biggest in town now at just a quarter inch thick. It features a 1600 x 1200 11.5-inch touchscreen (finger and stylus) that should be much better for magazine and newspaper layouts.

Skiff also has 4GB of on-board storage (with over 3GB available for content), SD card expansion, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Content can be loaded via a mini USB jack or through WiFi and 3G is also an option thanks to Sprint, who will sell the Skiff this year for an unknown price.

The Curve 8530 has now made it to Sprint. It will cost you $50 with a new contract after mail in rebate. This one features a 2.5-inch display, OS 5.0, 3.5mm headphone jack, and of course WiFi.

This one is a solid no nonsense device. without any pizazz. If you want some pizazz you can always paint it, dip it in gold or adorn it with some Swarovski crystals. Not that we condone any of that. Just sayin.

Yes you read that correctly. Just in the last year alone, Sprint turned over users GPS data to authorities 8 million times. Now maybe that number turns out to be grossly inflated. Maybe it’s really 4 million times, or 1 million. Even if it’s under a thousand users, this news is scary.

There are legitimate reasons for law enforcement agencies to have access to location data. We could all understand the need when it comes to missing person cases, kidnappings and wanted fugitives. We all want lives to be saved. But there must be some guidelines, because this is truly scary stuff below:

One of the things that I really hate about the mobile phone industry today is that they won’t just give you a good price. All of the carriers want to offer you a price that looks good, but what you really pay is often much more than that until a mail-in rebate comes in. Thankfully, Best Buy Mobile is cutting through the crap and offers all of the good prices with instant rebates in its stores.

The latest deals include the Sprint HTC Hero and Samsung Moment each for $99 with instant rebates applied. That means no paying more and waiting to get your money back. Both phones are originally priced at $179.

It’s official. Sprint will be offering a subsidized version of the popular Dell Mini 10. The netbook will feature an internal EVDO Revision A modem for 3G access wherever you are, so you aren’t just relying on the availability of Wi-Fi networks.

Aside from that, everything else under the hood remains the same. That includes an Intel Atom 1.33GHz processor, 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Windows XP Home. Sprint is offering the Dell Mini 10 for $200, with a 2-year agreement with a $60 monthly data plan…after a $100 mail-in rebate.

One of the things that has many iPhone users angered is that while the iPhone has tethering capability, AT&T has blocked the feature. I can only imagine how angry the users would be if they had been able to tether the iPhone for years and the feature was cancelled without notice. Sprint has done just that for some of its customers.

A poster going by kevinapg has posted at the Sprint Blogs that the ability to tether his Blackberry handset has been blocked. The poster states that for years tethering has been supported through the Sprint Smartview software.

This is just plain weird. As much as I get tired of hearing whatever the person standing in line at the checkout counter next to me has as their ringtone, a chirping bird would be worse than some crappy country song. Sprint has announced that it has teamed up with the Audubon to release bird call ringtones.

There will be 28 different bird ringtones offered including the Field Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and the Black-capped Chickadee. The ringtones can be downloaded by texting BIRD to 1111 or downloaded from the Sprint Digital Lounge.

If you have a moment, then let us take a moment, for the Samsung Moment. Sprint has just announced that their latest handset, the Samsung Moment will be the first in the US from Samsung to run Android. The Samsung moment will arrive with a bunch of pre-loaded Google mobile services like Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube. Then of course there’s all of the apps from the Android market too.

Some other features include a 3.2″ AMOLED touchscreen display, an 800MHz processor, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, 3G support, full QWERTY keyboard, GPS navigation, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash, camcorder and autofocus capabilities and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The first Palm device to hit the market running the firms new webOS was the Pre that is still a Sprint exclusive handset. Palm has today announced its second webOS device called the Palm Pixi.

The Pixi is a thin phone with a full QWERTY keyboard on the front of the device in Blackberry fashion. Palm is mum on the exact launch date but says that the Pixi will hit Sprint (sigh) in time for the holidays. The handset will operate on dual-band CDMA2000 networks and supports 3G EVDO Rev A.