[debsbb]

I am sooooo anxiously awaiting the release of Storm3 for Verizon. My impatience just got a whole lot worse with Friday's release of the new Torch for ATT and I'm hoping VZW's version won't be far behind.

I've never paid attention to any of this before, just purchased a phone when I needed/wanted one. Wanting to learn to be smarter about cell phone purchases & plans/upgrades I would like to know the following:

Is there a specific time of year that new phone models are released?

Is it safe to assume that when you see the "buy 1 get 1 free" at Verizon that what they're doing is trying to dump their existing supply of that particular phone because the new model of that phone is going to be available shortly?

Is there a specific time of the year one can count on to get the best deals, like Christmas time or after Christmas sales time for example?

I read somewhere that there will be some huge deals for Black Friday, any truth to this? I don't follow the Black Friday thing at all so I wasn't aware cell phone companies participated in things like Black Friday sales.

Any other tips/hints you're willing to pass along to help me be a better cell phone consumer I would appreciate. Thanks!