I was just reading on Venture Beat that Wal-Mart will sell the T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8520, which goes on sale Aug. 5th, for $48.88.  This is compared to $129.99 at T-Mobile.  This got me to thinking, does T-Mobile actually expect consumers to buy these devices directly from them?

I am sure that by the time Aug. 5th comes around, it will be pretty well known to people looking to get an inexpensive BlackBerry that Wal-Mart has the best deal in town.  If you happen to be willing to pay over $80 more to get the Curve 8520 from T-Mobile, why not make it a cool $100 and get a Curve 8900, which, for $20 more, is a much better device.

Granted, you may not get the optical trackpad and may have to way a few hours until someone leaks BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac online to get your Mac compatibility, but, the 3.2 megapixel camera compared to 2.0 megapixels, the camera flash, and GPS, among other things make that additional $20 well worth it.