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
Orange today announced the launch of the BlackBerry® Curve™ 8900 smartphone exclusively on pay as you go. The offering builds on the success of the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 smartphone, which Orange introduced on pay as you go earlier this year, the easy-to-use Curve will be priced at £249.99, providing consumers with a rich multimedia experience at their finger tips.
Also announced today, Orange is offering new customers taking a pay as you go BlackBerry® smartphone*, six months of free email and web browsing. After this time, customers can take out Orange’s pay as you go BlackBerry Internet Service for just £5 a month on a rolling monthly subscription.
The BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone delivers expanded functionality and reliability and its refined design makes it easy for one or two-handed use. It is the thinnest and lightest full-QWERTY BlackBerry® smartphone and features a striking 480×360 pixel display that offers up crisp and vivid content. Fully equipped with GPS, Wi-Fi® , a 3.2 megapixel camera that can also record video**, and an expandable memory slot supporting up to 16GB, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone allows users to balance work, life and everything in between.
There has been a lot of talk about the new BlackBerry Storm. The BlackBerry Storm is going to be the new touchscreen phone from RIM. Here at Crenk we haven’t yet had a chance to play with the new phone, but we think this could take a large share of the market.
The BlackBerry Storm is aimed to help RIM get into the touchscreen market, while at the same time help Verizon Wireless (its exclusive U.S. carrier) have a decent smartphone competitor to the Apple-AT&T iPhone.
However, as this is the first real touchscreen from RIM it is always going to have its drawbacks. Unlike the iPhone when the touchscreen is easy to use and has good sensitivity, the RIM BlackBerry Storm however is currently a little less touchy and more pushy (if that makes sense), but all the same still works.
There’s still some variables to get ironed out, like pricing. And the phone has some glaring shortcomings, like no wi-fi, no support for iTunes-DRM-encoded music and movies, and a tiny third-party app platform. But last we checked, the iPhone, for all its merits, was still just 24% of the U.S. consumer smartphone market — meaning three of four buyers were putting their money elsewhere. Bottom line: There’s plenty of room for competition, and with Verizon’s marketing dollars behind it, we think RIM’s new phone will do well.
BlackBerry has long been in need of a refreshing user defined experience similar to what Apple users experience with the iPhone. iPhone users are able to build the phone they want with a variety of free and pay-for apps that build on the already amazing functionality of the iPhone. BlackBerry has finally decided to jump into the applications market by announcing their BlackBerry Application Center which will launch with the release of the BlackBerry Storm software version 4.7.
This will allow BlackBerry users to define their experience by picking and choosing the apps they want to add to their very functional phones. RIM’s answer may come late compared to Apple’s and Google’s application markets, but BlackBerry users are sure to jump on board this concept.
Unfortunately RIM’s successful announcement has been deflated with the launch of an unaffiliated opening of a BlackBerry app site called
BerryStore. The site boasts a growing 40 apps already for download and look to add more just in the weeks to come. The benefit of going through BerryStore is that it does not rely solely on the release of the BlackBerry Storm, but rather has apps that will work across old and new phones in the BlackBerry family.
So the question becomes, did BlackBerry just get upstaged? For those that can’t afford to make the switch or jump to the Storm, it appears an opportunity has opened up to them, which makes switching almost pointless, and puts some flavor into your existing BlackBerry.
