New Sidekick, Pre spotted 'in the wild'

Sightings of both the Sidekick 2009 and the Palm Pre -- both wildly anticipated smartphones not yet available to the masses -- have been inflaming the gear-gossip blogs for days in the wake of the the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

The Pre, rumored in some highly optimistic circles to be hitting the stores on February 15 (hint: that didn't happen), turned up in a photo posted by a Twitter member late last week, causing squealing sounds from blogs such as Palm preScool and PreCentral. And GSM-network subscribers will be pleased to hear that according to PreCentral, Pre units sporting Vodaphone SIM cards were spotted at MWC.

Meanwhile, Engadget's got a Sidekick 2009 sighting, conveniently showing a Monday date on the (apparently larger!) screen. The image shows only the front of the device with the screen flipped up, so it's hard to see much in the way of changes, though one does notice that the buttons look slightly different and the body's a bit curvier along the edges.

Palm says the Pre will be available sometime during the first half of the year. T-Mobile isn't currently providing information on the next Sidekick's availability, though reported FCC testing would indicate that it'll be released sooner rather than later.