Sprint and Verizon representatives have confirmed that both carriers will launch a revision of the forthcoming BlackBerry Tour which includes a Wi-Fi radio, making it a first for both CDMA carriers.

In related news Sprint has confirmed that every smart device manufacturer that wants to offer smart devices on the carrier must include a Wi-Fi radio in the device, a requirement that can be seen in the latest devices from HTC and Palm in the Pre and Snap, noting that the decision was made internally to require Wi-Fi in previous quarters.

The reasoning behind the inclusion for Wi-Fi was borne out of customer demand and a desire to reach parity with GSM carriers, since Wi-Fi radios are routinely included in GSM BlackBerry models.

The Snap (S511) by HTC is replacing the venerable Motorola Q9c on Sprint and is its low cost Windows Mobile messenger device ($149 with contract; $399 without). Running Windows Mobile Standard 6.1, the phone packs quite the punch in terms of specs and features HTC’s new offset QWERTY keyboard, meant to mimic a real desktop keyboard.

After three weeks of using the device and putting it through the works, we have our verdict. Read on for our full-featured review!

Hardware

The guts of the Sprint Snap are quite good for this class. Clocking in at 528MHz, sporting EvDO Rev A and a super sharp 320×240 screen, the device is quite speedy at launching everything from Outlook to Skyfire. Unfortunately, absent is WiFi and the trackball has been replaced by a standard 5-way.

Memory

Memory (both RAM and ROM) is not exceptional, with roughly 80MB of free RAM after a boot and 75MB of storage. But once again, for this class of device, it seems acceptable. After the last three weeks of usage I have about 21MB of internal storage left (after clearing IE cache), which is getting a bit on the low side for my tastes. RAM seems fine, although we do see some Windows Mobile 6.1 memory management going on when we run…