Blackberry Turning Soft?
There once was a time when if you wanted to surf the web, check you e-mails and text a buddy on the move you bought a Blackberry. They took care of everything for you and became so popular the brand name was a synonym for ‘Smartphone’. However, the competition has been heating up in the Smartphone market ever since the iPhone was introduced last year. Samsung are meeting it head on with their i900 and the Nokia N97 will give it a run for its money. With all these new releases, each one promising more than the other you’d expect Blackberry, the old giant of the Smartphone world to come out with a good model. You’d be wrong.
Instead, they throw the Tour 9630 out there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good phone. Good shapes like the Blackberry Curve, nice and wide, QWERTY keyboard and a 480×360 screen. It also has 3G, GPS mapping, good browsing speed and a 3.2 megapixel camera. However, I ask you – does any of this surprise you. When the iPhone came out everyone gasped when GPS mapping was so well incorporated, when the touch screen was so easy to operate and when the internet was just that – the internet. But the upcoming Blackberry Tour 9630 just doesn’t offer anything new.
In fact, it has taken away a few features including one very important one – WiFi. This will deter the typical consumer who doesn’t particularly want to pay 3G charges and use their home WiFi instead. For this reason, the 9630 is only really a good phone for the business person, not for the average consumer. I think that Blackberry has cut out a large chunk of the market by leaving out WiFi. Are Blackberry floundering under the pressure of a new Smartphone market or are they ramping things up for a big release? Let’s hope for the latter because it would be a shame to see a once strong giant disappear so quickly with barely a whimper from phones like the 9630
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