New BlackBerry features smaller keyboard
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With the economy slowly turning up, upgrading hardware has been on businesses radar in the past 12 months as their number two priority.
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(InfoWorld) - Research In Motion has finally announcedÂ the BlackBerry 8800, the multimedia business handset whose details RIM leaked following Apple's iPhone announcement, apparently to offset the company's sliding stock price. The 8800 is RIM's most developed effort to date to combine theÂ Pearl 8100'sÂ consumer-oriented features in a package similar to the business-oriented 8700. In practice that means features such as integrated GPS, a 2.4-inch color screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, a high-capacity battery, and trackball navigation in a case wider (and slightly thinner) than the Pearl and noticeably thinner than the 8700. The QWERTY keyboard is designed to improve upon the Pearl's use of a numeric keypad with SureType, but the keys are a bit more cramped than those of the 8700, initial reviewers said. There are said to be models available with or without a camera. The built-in GPS can be used with included navigation software for an extra monthly fee. It has voice-activated dialing, a speakerphone, Bluetooth 2.0, a media player, and a microSD memory card slot, with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Wi-Fi. So far, Orange, Vodafone, and T-Mobile have all announced rollout plans for the device in Europe, while AT&T has an exclusive launch deal in the U.S. RIM's Competition The handset may be an improvement over previous BlackBerry models, but RIM now has other kinds of competition to worry about, particularly in the user-interface department. The company is rumored to be working on a complete interface overhaul with the BlackBerry 9000 series, but in the meantime Microsoft has launched Windows Mobile 6, and touch-screen phones areÂ on the way from Apple, Samsung (the Ultra Smart F700, announced ahead of 3GSM), and LG (the KE850 Prada phone). There are also other handsets such asÂ Samsung's BlackJackÂ that fall into a similar price bracket to the 8800 but offer 3G networking, something lacking in RIM's models. Push e-mail and GPS are also no longer unusual in higher-end handsets. "This handset will be extremely appealing to mobile professionals who have demanding work and social lives," said Charmaine Eggberry, RIM EMEA vice president and managing director, in a statement.
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The BlackBerry 7100 Series handsets are the first wireless devices to feature SureType with large, &quot;optimally placed&quot; keys that allow one-handed or two-handed operation.
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The biggest attraction for customers, said IDC analyst Alex Slawsby, is that RIM has provided QWERTY text-input capabilities in the Blackberry 7100t device.
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New component could allow players small enough to fit in notebook PCs.
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The 7100t has a mobile phone, e-mail, instant messaging, Web browsing and functions as an organiser. The device looks like a mobile phone and has the features of the other BlackBerry models, with a large screen
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Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday said it will introduce the newest version of its popular BlackBerry wireless email device in Europe and
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SureType effectively converges a phone keypad and a QWERTY keyboard to fit elegantly within the size constraints of a traditional mobile phone form factor.
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Yet another card format is here, spun off of the venerable MMC format by Samsung. This one is small enough to fit on a key of a keyboard, or into the smallest device.
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The new audio and video player has a smaller screen, function list, and price tag than Apple's entry.
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College parties met business e-mail on Wednesday as Facebook said it is adding its social-networking platform to Research In Motion Ltd.&#39;s BlackBerry devices.T-Mobile will be the first carrier to build a Facebook application into the BlackBerries it sells, but BlackBerry users on any network will be able to download the application starting later Wednesday, Facebook Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering Dustin Moskovitz said in a keynote address at the CTIA Wireless IT&#160;and Entertainment show in San Francisco.In the keynote, Moskovitz demonstrated taking a photo with a BlackBerry Curve device, adding tags to it and posting it to Facebook without even starting up the Facebook application. Other features include the ability to set special ringtones for Facebook events and invite friends to join Facebook through BlackBerry e-mail. But it&#39;s the open nature of Facebook&#39;s platform, which allows third parties to add new applications, that sets the company apart, Moskovitz said.The tie-up brings together the highest profile social-networking player, with almost 50 million active users, and an enterprise mobile pioneer vying for market share against Microsoft, Palm, Symbian, Apple, and other device and OS vendors. Executives of the two companies met at the CTIA Wireless Show in March in Orlando and agreed to work together, Moskovitz said. Openness is the key factor they had in common, he said.Starting from a base of thousands of colleges and high schools, Facebook last year opened its network to anyone, and members over 35 years old are the fastest-growing segment, Moskovitz said. RIM has its roots in corporate e-mail tied to specialized enterprise servers so the partnership could help Facebook grow right where it&#39;s catching up.The announcement came amid reports on Wednesday that&#160;Google and Microsoft are wooing Facebook.Facebook also announced a few other advances in the mobile arena, where it expects to have 4 million active users by the end of this month. There are Facebook services available on most major U.S. and Canadian carriers, and Moskovitz announced its first carrier deal outside North America, with O2 (U.K.) Ltd.One extension announced Wednesday lets users add information from third-party Facebook applications as a box in their mobile profiles. As an example, Moskovitz showed a user&#39;s profile that listed two causes he supports. Another extension lets organizations text-message Facebook members to send a text message in support of a cause. The member&#39;s support is immediately reflected on Facebook on the Web, he said.
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Samsung Electronics has developed an ultra small, fingernail-sized digital imaging flash memory card that is less than one-third the size of existing memory cards.
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With XSKN's FK MB Midnight keyboard skin, I can put a big ol' sticker on my keyboard with all the Photoshop keyboard shortcuts printed on it. From Crave, CNET's gadgets blog.
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It&#39;s now possible to enjoy all the benefits of a full featured QWERTY keyboard in a small wireless device, thanks to Research In Motion&#39;s (RIM) new patent-pending SureType keyboard.
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In an attempt to increase its share of the business market, the mobile phone maker Nokia on Tuesday announced a sleeker version of its Communicator smart phone and expanded the number of mobile phones equipped with the BlackBerry e-mail application, a
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The new model of Research In Motion's popular BlackBerry e-mail device includes a quad-band phone and Bluetooth.
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Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq:RIMM) (TSX:RIM) today introduced the innovative new BlackBerry 7100v(TM) for mobile professionals, further expanding choice for Vodafone&#39;s BlackBerry(R) customers.