It's no mere coincidence that folks have been able to pick up Brigades this week, because Verizon's chosen today to officially light up retail availability of its latest in the long-running G'zOne series from Casio. The landscape QWERTY clamshell features a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with video capture, microSD expansion, EV-DO Rev. A data, mil-spec 810F compliance for resistance to just about all the bad stuff you could possibly come in contact with during an average day, and a pair of displays: WQVGA on the inside paired with a 128 x 96 monochrome OLED up front. It runs $249.99 on contract after $50 rebate and it's available today, so start planning your next dusty, wet, cold, rocky activity where you can put this thing to the ultimate test.

It feels like the Brigade's been in the public conscience for forever and a day (and let's be honest, November is forever and a day ago by phone standards), but amazingly, Casio's latest rugged G'zOne for Verizon still isn't being offered -- at least, not in any official capacity. It seems some HowardForums posters have managed to order and receive their Brigades by calling the carrier's telesales directly, and a few uploaded shots of the boxed QWERTY clamshell is enough to have us believing it's the real deal. For what it's worth, this tends to happen pretty frequently with Verizon -- they'll start selling and shipping new devices over the phone a couple weeks before announcing availability or offering them via the web -- so it doesn't come as much of a surprise that we're going down the same road again here, and a few brick and mortar locations have apparently started to take delivery, too. Expect to pay $249 after $50 rebate -- in other words, enough cash so that you'd better really need a messaging-centric dumbphone with a tough shell.

We hadn't heard that the Storm2's unique piezo-actuated touchscreen was acting up in any statistically significant way, but apparently, there'd been enough with dodgy lower left corners to prompt RIM to do something about it. BerryScoop and BlackBerry Leaks are reporting that Verizon stores have been ordered to return their existing stock in favor of new Storm2s with "silicone actuators" added to "to improve touchpad performance and tactile response," and don't worry, current customers -- it seems you're more than welcome to exchange your old unit for an upgraded one provided you're "experiencing touchpad performance issues" (wink, wink). Unfixed handsets need to be out of stores by March 11, so it looks like you can definitely find the new ones hanging around this week -- let us know if you can tell the difference.

By and large, Verizon hasn't flinched once in its march to LTE -- the proof is obviously going to be in the pudding, but leading up to the first commercial launches, they're talking as confidently as they ever have. Take last weeks Network World interview with the company's CTO Tony Melone, for example, where he's once again reiterated the carrier's intention to bring 25-30 markets live commercially this year and achieve roughly a complete overlay of its 3G network in 2013. That's nothing new or particularly interesting, but Melone's choice of language is encouraging, saying that they're "ahead of where [they] thought [they'd] be as far as site readiness goes," going on to report that the 25-30 market goal for 2010 is "looking better each day, not worse each day." That's bold, but he got a little less bold when talking about LTE voice: "The question for us will be whether our footprint will be sufficient at that point to provide customers with a good experience for voice over LTE, or whether we'll be better off offering 3G coverage for voice and 4G for data." The hesitation has us believing that an initial round of dual-mode handsets is basically a forgone conclusion, but at least we'll have the modems up and running in the meantime.

It feels like the Tour isn't quite aged enough to be replaced -- especially when you consider that the downright ancient Pearl 8100 series is still sold on carriers around the world -- but it seems that Verizon (and Sprint, naturally) might be champing at the bit to move on to a newer model with WiFi and a complete eradication of the pesky trackball. Verizon's posted a Java app to its site with the file name "vvmail_9650.jad," a reference to the Tour2's model number. Of course, the Tour2 itself has yet to be announced by RIM in any capacity -- let alone for a specific carrier -- so we've got some hurdles to jump before this is on shelves, but if nothing else, we can safely say it's coming to Big Red sooner or later.

[Image via BGR]

The Bluetooth SIG's device database isn't typically the most helpful when it comes to tracking down specs and gorgeous, high-res photos -- but often, it's first way we hear of a new device, so we'll take what we can get. Take this F350 from ZTE for example; from the single picture the SIG's given us, we can't even make out whether it's a landscape or slider, a pivot, or a full touchscreen (doubtful) phone, but we can make out a shiny little Verizon swoosh three-quarters of the way down. It'll apparently have a camera, voice command capability, Bluetooth (of course), and a 1X radio, but we're not clear on whether that means it won't have EV-DO. Now that we know Verizon's working with ZTE, this makes quite a bit of sense, doesn't it?

For chronic TV viewers, Verizon's high-octane AT&T bashing got tired pretty fast -- as did seeing Luke Wilson shill for the latter every few minutes -- but we've got to admit, the latest gag here is well-played. Verizon's reaching back through the annals of commercial history and redoing a couple famous ones with a my-3G-map-is-better-than-yours twist, and so far they've hit up DeBeers' classic "shadows" campaign (it doesn't end well for the gentleman with the AT&T phone here, of course) and Wrigley's old Big Red series with the catchy theme song the older folks in the crowd will undoubtedly remember. We wondered how long it'd take for Verizon to break down at admit that it shares a nickname with a cinnamon-flavored chewing gum, and now we've got our answer. Follow the break to check out both spots.

Verizon -- like pretty much any North American carrier -- has an amazing propensity for offering countless, virtually anonymous flips from LG and Samsung. Yes, granted, they seem to be better at catering to the specific "needs" of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile more than any other manufacturer -- and for many customers, it's hard to argue with a decent-looking phone that costs a few bucks on contract -- but you'd think they'd be able to keep these handsets in the lineup for literally years on end without a single change. Alas, PhoneArena seems to have the inside line on a couple new ones for Big Red that do little to move the low-end needle, including this VX5600 Accolade (pictured) whose headline features are a 1.3 megapixel cam and Bluetooth support. There's apparently a second flip in the pipeline called the "Clout" that should be fixing to replace the year-old VX8360, so yeah, nothing that's going knock your socks off in this batch of rumors. Hey, they can't all be Snapdragon-powered beasts with WVGA displays, right?

At $2.99 for 24 hours or $9.99 a month, the latest version of Verizon's branded navigation service carriers over the same antiquated business model that seems destined for the scrap heap -- but for what it's worth, VZ Navigator 5.0 is now in full effect with a handful of new and freshened features. Most notable are a speech-to-text search mode for WinMo and BlackBerry versions of the service, crowdsourced traffic information (not unlike Google's strategy, though with decidedly fewer users on board), and Facebook integration that allows you to post location updates straight to your account. To start, only the BlackBerry Curve 8530, LG enV Touch, HTC Touch Pro2, and Samsung Omnia are getting the upgrade, but more devices will move to 5.0 "in the coming weeks." Droid users, meanwhile, continue enjoying Google Maps Navigation at no charge whatsoever.

It doesn't look like we've got any showstoppers here -- but just as with any major new smartphone release, Verizon's Pre Plus is starting to take some lumps after romping in the field for a week since its retail availability kicked off. Of the two biggies being cited so far, one is of particular concern: apps other than VZ Navigator don't seem to take advantage of GPS augmentation, meaning they're relying on a straight-up GPS signal alone to get a location lock -- something that often doesn't work on a phone (a reliable workaround seems to be to open VZ Navigator before you open the app you really need, but still, not an optimal situation). The second, less troublesome issue involves sending MMS messages over WiFi; basically, you can't. The phone forgets to fire up cellular data to send the message and tries to route it over the WiFi connection instead, which inevitably fails. What's odd about both of these is that they seem like regressions from the software already rolled out to Sprint (and other) Pres, and a surprising lack of rigor from a carrier known for putting its phones through the gauntlet prior to release. Let's hope we see an over-the-air update in short order, shall we?

Among European wireless conglomerates, it's not just Deutsche Telekom that's under the gun to make magic happen for investors these days. Shareholders of the UK's Vodafone are banging on the doors, too, asking why the company's stock is trading an estimated 30 percent lower than the sum of its parts -- and they want something done about it. Part of the problem appears to be the fact that Voda hasn't seen a dime from its 45 percent ownership of Verizon Wireless since 2005 (the joint venture simply hasn't paid any dividends) and it doesn't expect to for at least another couple years -- but there are apparently a variety of assets in its portfoilo around the world that have investors worked up, including its part ownership of France's SFR. CEO Vittorio Colao (pictured) has made no secret of the fact that all options are on the table and Verizon Communications would likely be more than happy to snap up Vodafone's 45 percent stake; with the guys with all the money starting to get worked up, we might see some blockbuster deals happen in 2010.

It seems there are a handful of Droid owners reporting in forums today that they're receiving over-the-air updates to their precious handsets -- and no, before you ask, it's sadly not the Android 2.1 bump that we've been promised. Actually, it's unclear exactly what this particular update is doing, but early leads suggest that it improves support for the Facebook app in the Marketplace -- users who'd previously been unable to download the latest version are now able to do so. We'll keep an eye on the situation, and naturally, drop us a line in comments if you've got any insight on the sitch.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

It looks like new buyers of a slew of Verizon's most popular handsets are going to get saddled with a little extra baggage starting next week: a minimum required data plan of $9.99. The package -- which is said to include 25MB worth of data -- is apparently going to be required for some heavyweights in the carrier's lineup including the enV3 and enV Touch, devices termed "3G Multimedia" phones by the powers that be (as opposed to "advanced," we guess). If you have one of these phones already and you're using it without a data package, don't worry -- you won't initially be required to make any changes, but it seems that certain plan modifications will trigger an automatic add-on. It's a pretty lame move, and considering how closely the FCC is watching Big Red right now, it's not particularly well-timed, either.

Remember that leaked Ozone ROM from a couple weeks back? Yeah, well, it's back -- and this time it's being offered in a very official way. PCD -- the middleman between Verizon and HTC -- is offering Windows Mobile 6.5-imbued builds for both the Ozone as well as the Touch Pro2, bringing it up to spec with AT&T's Tilt2 which launched with 6.5 out of the gate (thanks in no small part to its late availability). Both updates are posted on PCD's site, so go grab 'em while the grabbing's good.

[Thanks, Brian]