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Feeling overloaded with BlackBerry news and rumors? We know the feeling. We hear new things almost every day, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. that’s why we’re bringing you BlackBerry News from the Wire every Thursday.

We’ll catch you up on everything ‘Berry that happened over the course of the week. Not only that, but we’ll rank ‘em by importance, so you can more easily skim the items and read the ones of most significance. If you only have time to read one article, for instance, you might want to head down to our 5-star section. It’s All the BlackBerry News Fit to Geek.

BlackBerry Curve tops handset sales in December
RIM put another notch in its belt this past week, as sales figures from December 2008 reveal that the BlackBerry Curve was the most popular handset in the U.S>. It topped the mighty iPhone, which isn’t actually much of a surprise. The Curve is available from all major cellular carriers, while the iPhone is available solely from AT&T. However, right on the heels of the iPhone at No. 3 was the Storm, which is a good sign for RIM. It topped a pair of LG devices, the Voyager and the Dare, both also exclusively available from Verizon, and the BlackBerry Bold, exclusively from AT&T. Normally, I might say something like: Perhaps the Curve topping the charts will cause carriers to re-think exclusive handset deals. Alas, each phone that follows in the Top 10 is a carrier exclusive.

Some details on BIS 2.6
It looks like BIS 2.6 is right around the corner, so what can we expect from it? Boy Genius Report runs down the new features, though it amounts to a fairly short post. One improvement is that GMail will run through IMAP, though you can already program it to do so manually, which will stop sent mails from appearing in your inbox. Unfortunately, it’s still a one-way sync. You’ll also gain the ability to change your BlackBerry email signature via the WAP browser, so you don’t have to login to BIS from your desktop anymore. Kevin has it “on good word” that BIS 2.6 will drop in March or April, and will be on a carrier-by-carrier basis. Can we have BIS 2.7 yet?

Breaking down the BlackBerry Curve 8900
It’s tough not to appreciate the guys at phoneWreck. They take fancy new phones and take them apart, revealing the innards. Even better, they take pictures, label them, and put them on display for us all. They recently dismantled the BlackBerry Curve 8900. The only fault they found with it, before breaking it down, was the battery cover. You can go check out their detailed analysis of what’s under the hood.

What’s the deal with all new Berrys having cameras?
Remember the day when the BlackBerry came standard sans camera? The reasoning, of course, is that a number of enterprise customers, once and probably still RIM’s bread and butter, can’t have camera phone in certain areas (e.g., courtroom). With the Curves, Pearls, Bold, and Storm, RIM it looks like RIM is gung-ho on including cameras with each handset. Al Sacco, writing at PC World, pleads for a new BlackBerry that doesn’t include a camera. “For example, RIM could release a BlackBerry Curve 8905 without a camera on T-Mo in addition to the camera-laden Curve 8900.” It sounds like the AT&T version of the 8900 will come without a camera, though that’s not certain.

Best Buy lets the Pearl 8230 slip
It’s pretty well known that the BlackBerry Pearl 8230 will eventually end up on Telus. The company hasn’t officially announced it, though, so it’s not “official.” Best Buy, however, has it listed on their website. Oops. Looks like it will cost $499.95 without a contract, $449.95 with a one-year deal, $249.95 for two years, and $29.95 for three years.

Text selection to get better on Storm
For those looking to use their fingers for selecting text on the Storm — what other way would you do it? — it looks like you’ll be getting a break soon. According to BlackBerry Sync, this feature is coming soon to a Storm OS near you. No word on exactly when we’ll see it, but you can head over to their site to check out a video demonstration.

Is the upgrade to the 8900 worth it?
We know that the BlackBerry Curve 8900 doesn’t have a 3G radio. But does it have enough other features to justify an upgrade? Robb from RIMarkable ponders the issue. He loves the better camera, the GPS/Wi-Fi combo, and the higher-res screen, but like most people can’t answer the question of whether it’s worth the $200 and two-year contract for upgrade. Then again, you could always cut $150 off the up-front price and get it from Amazon.

The Berry is mightier than the Apple
To round out this week’s column, here’s a link to a simple BlackBerry promo video. I won’t say anything other than: A BlackBerry fruit looks kind of like a bullet, and a bullet would pass right through an apple.

Application Suite or Application Store? I made a boo boo in last week’s News From The Wire, so I corrected it in this post.

Beejive all-in-one IM still on sale. If you use a ton of IM clients, you can sign up for Beejive’s all-in-one IM client, which is now discounted by $5 in anticipation of their new upgrade. I still prefer to use individual clients on my Berry.

Best BlackBerry weather applications, take 2. We’re taking a second look at weather apps for BlackBerry. The difference this time: we’re only going with free ones.

Advanced Call Manager for BlackBerry. Yeah, I totally dig this concept. You can control what happens when people call you, including sending them an auto-SMS to let them know you’re busy. Now, if only I could change my voicemail message like a status message.

More BlackBerry theme reviews. We take a look at themes from Cherri Chiodo, Hedone Design, and Jason Calhoun in this week’s Theme Review Wednesdays.

YouMail releases upgraded client. There was some negative reaction to the initial release of YouMail’s visual voicemail BlackBerry client. Let’s see if the upgraded version addresses those issues.

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