RSSVerizon officially announces touchscreen BlackBerry
By Tim Conneally | Published October 8, 2008, 2:55 PM
"The world's first touchscreen BlackBerry...What will it feel like?" asks Verizon's teaser page for the upcoming BlackBerry Storm that was announced today.
Verizon's EV-DO Rev. A network will carry the Storm in the US, while Europe, India, and Oceania will offer the device through Vodafone. In India last August, however, the launch of the 3G iPhone was heavily qualified with disclaimers on the 3G network's limitations. Like the complaints about AT&T's 3G in the US, Indian consumers, too expressed frustration at the unreliable service provided by Vodafone's less-than-ready 3G network.
In May, Computerworld compared all the available 3G networks in the US, and determined that AT&T's was the best all around. Just three months later, the widespread opinion is that even our best network isn't that hot.
This BlackBerry may provide the opportunity for Verizon to show off its 3G mettle. During the company's earnings call in July, Verizon COO Denny Strigl noted that the AT&T-exclusive 3G iPhone affected Verizon "disproportionately less than our relative market share."
Furthermore, the enterprise-friendly BlackBerry is poised to sweep out the legs Apple has established in getting companies to support iPhone enterprise deployments.
As for the device itself, RIM touts the "click" feedback of the touchscreen, the accelerometer-triggered landscape/portrait screen swap, cut and paste features, full HTML browsing, and ambient light adjustment to screen brightness.
The Storm also offers a 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, a 3.5 mm headphone jack (to accompany the full-screen media player functions,) stereo Bluetooth, 1 GB of onboard memory expandable to 16 GB via microSD, and, of course, the 480 x 360 (184pp1) haptic feedback touchscreen.
The Storm is expected to be available later this fall.
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And just a few weeks ago we were reading how the iPhone would have to move more towards the Blackberry in design...
Yup, that multi-touch interface technology...it'll never fly... LOL!
Very smart move on RIM's part. It just may render the iPhone moot in the enterprise segment...Sharp looking. It'll be interesting to read the user reviews.
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Wow nice... why do I have a feeling within 5 years we will be carrying our computers on our phones and simply docking them to play games for the bigger screen?
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Well, nice, but I'm not sure that many people will be thrilled with the fact that this thing doesn't have a keyboard.
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Found on their web web site.
"RIM is known for its e-mail-oriented phones with large keypads. With the new model announced Wednesday, the Storm, RIM is for the first time giving up the physical keypad in favor of a large screen, just like the one on Apple's iPhone."
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For once, this might be the first "true competitor" to the iPhone we've been waiting for. I personaly own a BB Curve 8330 and love it but this could be the ultimate BB ;)
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Might be worth looking at! any ideas on price?
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It does look IPHONE-ISH! I like what I see, but I tend to wait 6 month / year after a new device comes out to see if they work out the kinks.
Yet, if they have an update service like Apple does with the IPHONE it might be a thing to look into when my upgrade with Verizon comes around next year.
I saw a Report on Yahoo (http://tech.yahoo.com/ne...te/tec_blackberry_storm) that it woudl hover in the $179 - $199 range with a 2 Year Contract.
Would need to play around with it first and see what all the kinks are.
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That price range is pretty competitive actually. I have an iPhone 3G and if Apple doesn't soon fix some of the gripes I have with it, I might consider this.
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