At the Consumer Electronics Show yesterday, Canada’s Research In Motion allowed attendees to get their hands on the long awaited OS update to the BlackBerry PlayBook to the show, and gave it a street date of Feb 17 2012. The 7” tablet was praised for its high spec hardware on release but criticized for the startling omission of a native email, contacts or calendar app, relying instead on third party solutions, or via a tethered BlackBerry handset.
RIM’s President and Co-CEO Mike Lazardis highlighted a number of productivity features that will appeal its core users. He announced that the 2.0 update would include a native unified inbox, pulling together email and social messaging alerts, as has become familiar with BlackBerry’s dedicated user-base the world over. Additional features for email include ‘tabbed email’ allowing users to write one email whilst referencing another, advanced inbox support for multiple accounts and out-of-office controls, and full rich-text email support for control over fonts and layouts. The calendar app is an expanded version of the mobile app that allows people to see how busy their day is depending on the size of the date, useful for identifying your busy spots at a glance. Native BBM is notable by its omission however, and has been further pushed back.
If this all sounds a bit too much ‘book’ and not enough ‘play’, RIM offered the BlackBerry Video Storefront, a media portal for TV and Film downloads, whilst BlackBerry Remote allows the use of a tethered handset as, you guessed it, a remote, handy for when the PlayBook is plugged into an HDTV via HDMI.
Since its much-hyped launch early in 2011, the PlayBook has never managed to meet the expectation of hype with convincing sales figures. Estimates put the number between 500,000-700,000 units, which makes the PlayBook a minor player next to Android tablets and the iPad. Substantial price cuts did help increase sales last year, although the effect was something more of a trickle than a flow. Its unlikely that this update will turn charming yet diminutive PlayBook into a market leader, but existing users will be pleased to see they’re loyalty rewarded with a fresh OS update and features that, whilst welcome, should really have been there at launch.
See the full press release after the break, and check out Omio’s deals page for great offers on BlackBerry handsets and the PlayBook.
The mulled wine is still warm in Omio Towers and yet T-Mobile are already thrusting into a January sale of epic proportions!
From today (23rd December) until the 31st of January, T-Mobile are offering discounts on contract deals, pay-as-you-go handsets and propping up their SIM only offers too.
In the pay monthly arena, the magenta network are taking a fiver off per month from the HTC Desire S, making it available for free from just £20 on a 24-month contract. A fiver more will net you the new and improved BlackBerry Curve 9360, complete with unlimited BlackBerry mail.
T-Mobile’s own-brand Android handset – the Vivacity – will now only set you back just £10.21 per month, a bargain for a Gingerbread-powered device complete with 3.5″ touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera.
For those happy with their current device and looking for a SIM only deal, T-Mobile now offers up to 500MB of free internet with every package, including both 30-day and 12-month plans. Factoring in unlimited texts to the bargain, and the offer stacks up favourably with the SIMO competition.
Phone fans will also appreciate the myriad offers in the PAYG section, including the HTC Wildfire S having its price shaved by £30 from £179.99 to £149.99, and the ever-popular BlackBerry Curve 8520 falling to £119.99, a saving of twenty quid.
There are a ton of other discounts across the board, so please be sure to check out their site for the full line-up of reductions!
Currently earmarked for a September 15th launch by Amazon.co.uk, the forthcoming BlackberryBold Touch 9900seemsset to make BBM and touchscreen fans very happy…but they may be happier still as retailer Play.com is teasing an August 12th release.
The excitement for RIM’s latest is entirely justified – debuting the brand’s first 1.2GHz processor, a new operating system in OS 7 and a 2.8-inch touchscreen within a Bold 9780-aping design, the Bold Touch 9900 might finally be all that BlackBerry lovers have waited for…
With a SIM-free price tag of £519.99 in some circles, bleeding edge BlackBerry tech doesn’t come cheap…but it’s still a sign that RIM will still be vying for supremacy in the smartphone wars moving forward.
The BlackBerry Playbook tablet launched amid loads of media-friendly pizazz at Selfridge’s earlier this month, and despite being a device that essentially requires tethering to a Blackberry handset to tether to in order to do most interesting things, they still saw fit to push a pretty aggressive ad campaign in the UK:
This is not a good way to market a new tablet device, just let me count the ways:
1) Many normal people neither know nor care about Flash support.
“What? That thing that my PC keeps telling me to install, and I ignore? Yeah, I don’t want Flash.” That was my girlfriend’s reaction when I tried to explain what Flash was, after first witnessing this advert on TV.
Guess what? Those photogenic, aspirational, under-25, skateboarding, DJing, parkouring and breakdancing BlackBerry customers you’ve been trying so hard to target (including by sponsoring the Black Eyed Peas on tour)? They have little time to fret over what Flash is, nor do they care about this in the slightest.
The Flash argument is one generated and propagated mainly by super techie folks and BlackBerry fanboys, so preaching to the converted with your ad by bigging up Flash is not the greatest way to spread the word about a new device…if people can check their mail, go on Facebook and maybe play an app or 100,000, they’re golden.
Show off that Quake demo if you really want to get some geek juice flowing!
Don’t try and blind me with animation from slow-loading sites that will likely rinse my mobile bill to view over 3G anyway…checked out Heavy.com lately? Us neither.
2) Smacks of trying too hard to compete with the Apple iPad.
“Unlike some tablets we could mention…” You just did.
Why not try and promote the Playbook in isolation? Don’t tell me in your ads why I don’t want an iPad, now I’m just thinking about an iPad!
The Apple iPad 2 doesn’t try to compete with you. It doesn’t compete with anything. Check it:
Apple adverts are brilliant in their execution by suggesting that an iPad is becoming an essential device.
Doctors use it to check out sonograms now. Businessmen show their revenue projections on it now. Kids do their homework on it now. If you don’t have one, you are using outmoded technology…apparently.
Remember the ‘Retina Display’ with the iPhone 4? Thanks to Apple, now everyone does. A technical term referring to the screen’s resolution, wrapped beautifully in common PR lingo, and is now becoming common parlance.
Okay, they also chatted about ‘oleophobic coatings‘ with that one and the iPhone 3GS, but my mobile gets just as greased up as any other…
The point is that they’ve laid all the groundwork! Apple spent ages, and also billions of dollars, convincing the world that these flat slabs – iPad included – were better in some ways than our phones and netbooks, and had the potential to change the portable gadget landscape forever.
So what does BlackBerry do? Iterate on the strengths of the iPad and advertise the Playbook’s myriad advancements as such? Nope.
“Ours is better than that one! We got Flash!” (*slide trombone* *tapdances on stage* *sound of crickets*)
The specs arms race is all but finished in terms of consumer-facing marketing, the iPhone’s camera should have told you that (“Megapixels? Don’t care. Does it work? Awesome.”).
Unless it’s a feature that can impress both friends and family at the local watering hole (Dual-Core anyone? No? Okay…), then don’t try to make it a bullet-point for the box.
Hate to harp on, but to make Flash not just a bullet-point but the only point in your opening salvo on UK audiences was wide of the mark. Dazzle with true pluses, not attempts at point scoring.
3) That song.
How much that Queen song set you back for clearance? Whoo, that much?
Kind of like the double meaning, the BlackBerry Playbook is the saviour of the tablet scene…with Flash.
But you do know it’s 30 years old, right? Anyone with any kind of nostalgic attachment to Flash’s Theme is on their second or third job now, not the trendy bike courier or rollerskating masseuse you’ve been trying to attract with your devices all this time…kind of a mixed message.
It seems to be a reference that would easily sail over the heads of kids that RIM wants to be way into BlackBerry now, reaffirming this tablet’s – and the firm’s – grown-up leanings they just can’t shake.
The comments upon the PlayBook’s launch regarding it ‘lacking the cool factor’ seem to be almost endorsed by this anachronistic choice of song in the advert…simply not suited to the hip Diplo, Henry Holland and Ernest Doku-endorsed BlackBerry line we’ve witnessed for the past few years.
The PlayBook needs to have a distinct voice in the tablet space, and also needs to promote what it actually can and can’t do in and of itself, rather than playing a petty game of one upmanship against the iPad with the aid of circa 1981 Freddie Mercury and his cohorts.
Following on from the news from T3 that the Blackberry Playbook would be released on 16th June in the UK, Expansys have stolen a march by releasing their pricing for the Canadian manufacturer’s first foray into the tablet market.
The online retailer will be stocking the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions of the Playbook which will cost £449.99, £499.99 and £599.99 respectively, with pre-orders available now.
When compared to Apple’s prices for their multimillion selling iPad 2, you begin to wonder just who will be opting for Blackberry’s tablet at a cost of between £20 and £50 more than their fruity cousins.
Unless you are a particularly security conscious consumer or have an employer that is willing to splurge on a PlayBook to team up with your company Blackberry (the only way you can actually get e-mails on it), then it is a little tougher to see why you might decide to plump for RIMs boxy effort over other tablet offerings…perhaps this BlackBerry Playbook review from T3 could shed a little light as to why?
Video of the rumoured, yet still unannounced follow up to RIM’s wildly successful Curve 3G, currently being touted as the Curve 9370 ‘Apollo’, has leaked online courtesy of Vietnamese blog tinhte.vn via our friends at electricpig.co.uk. See the video below, and a run down of what to expect from the newest BlackBerry handset.
What is apparent from the video is the new bodyshape, a smooth more rounded back, and tapered at the top and bottom, which makes the handset feel even thinner than its actual 11mm. The 3.5 headphone socket has moved to the top, and the side has a volume rocker, camera button and a tiny tiny standby button. Feel free to ogle it above in all its YouTube glory.
Whilst our Vietnamese is admittedly, um, non existent, an internet translation of the accompanying article does reveal some more interesting tech specs:
The camera has been improved to 5MP, with an LED flash to capture all of those late night/low light moments. There is also a front facing VGA camera included. The screen has also been given a pixel bump in line with the higher end BlackBerry models, up to 480 x 360 pixels, from 320 x 240.
The Curve Apollo runs the latest version of BlackBerry OS, version 6.1, and appears to run along smoothly thanks to double the memory (512mb) and a speed bump in the form of an 800MHz Marvell ‘Tavor’ processor.
Fingers crossed that RIM are slightly more cool about early footage of their handsets getting online than Apple were with the iPhone 4. Lets just hope our guys in Vietnam doesn’t get some steel capped boots knocking at the door any time soon!
Stay posted to Omio for any more official details. In the meantime, feel free to sign up for alerts on Omio’s deals page, so that the moment we get any indication of pricing or availability for the BlackBerry Curve ‘Apollo’, we’ll let you know!
Research In Motion, the Canadian firm behind the BlackBerry, have rolled out the brass band to trumpet the success of their handsets in the UK throughout 2010 and December in particular. BlackBerry as a brand seems to be bolstered by sales of their Curve range, available on prepay and affordable SIM-free deals, like the Curve 8520 handsets, and the slightly fancier Curve 3G models. Statistics come courtesy of market research firm GfK.
According to the stats. BlackBerry had a 36% share of the overall UK smartphone market in December 2010 making them the No.1 smartphone brand in the UK. BlackBerrys proved to be something of a Christmas gift hit, shifting over 500,000 units. The figures point to BlackBerry being the No.1 prepay smartphone brand with 51.1% of all prepay handsets sales . We have to agree that’s a lot of stockings stuffed!
Part of the BlackBerry brand’s success over this period can be put down to the uptake of mobile social networking in lower cost handsets. They have called another couple first places, claiming their handsets to be the No.1 home of the Twitterati by reporting over 6 million Twitter app downloads, as well as claiming to be the No.1 for ‘engagement on Facebook’. Reports that a RIM representative will be available to attend all the weddings are, as yet, unsubstantiated.
The BlackBerry brand has in the past veered towards the business/productivity market thanks to its physical keyboard and secure email infrastructure, with handsets like the Bold 9780 honouring this tradition. However they have also infiltrated the consumer market, through valuable exposure as something of a celebrity fashion accessory. For the higher end of the market, handsets such as the hybrid qwerty/touchscreen Torch 9800 and the entirely touch orientated Storm 2 still appeal to the high end user. The much lauded security of their emailing and messenger service, has had much positive press in disaster situations as well. During the July 7th London bombings for example, as the mobile networks ground to a halt with the sudden increase in traffic, BlackBerry users reported that their BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and email services still remained active.
The BlackBerry user base, is now expanding into new territories. For the younger, more cost conscious prepay user, the attraction is clear towards more affordable handsets like the Curve 8520 and the Curve 3G. Both contain all the social networking and multimedia functions that you’d care to shake a stick at, and the ease of the classic qwerty keypad loved by messaging addicts the world over. The brand exclusive BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service also provides a solid cost-free means of staying in touch with 55 million other BlackBerry users worldwide, without fear of international text costs or tipping over your monthly text allowances. BBM itself has also developed into something of a social network in its own right, with profiles, file sharing and recently enabling the exchange of contact details via visual QR Codes, rather than the slightly cumbersome PIN id’s. Whilst many of us have at some point heard or referred to them as CrackBerrys, due to the addictive power of their messenging services, this also points to their success at creating a strong user loyalty.
Whilst some are happy enough to splash something in the £500+ range for a high end touchy-feely handset off contract, many more utilise the subsidised model to offset the initial costs. An 18 or 24 month contract to a mobile provider puts handsets such as the Samsung’s Galaxy S, HTC’s Desire range, Apples iphone and the higher end Blackberry Storm 2 within range of anyone who is prepared to shoulder the higher monthly rate. However it shows that in the prepay end of the market, consumers are demanding smarter phones. The inevitable forward momentum of technology means features that were once deemed high end, soon filter down to become standard issue. The handsets of the near future at CES proved that manufacturers were looking to faster 4G connections, 3D screens, dual core processors and Near Field Communications (think contactless credit or Oyster cards) to push the envelope for high end cutting edge mobile tech, and keep us tech heads all cooing over, and shelling out for the latest flash mobiles.
So whilst RIM’s stats rightfully celebrate their 2010 success in the UK, in the world smartphone market, the picture is somewhat different. Industry analysts and data crunchers Canalsys released figures indicating that Google’s unstoppable ‘Droid army is dominating the worldwide smartphone market overall, with a 33% market share. This share is made up of handsets notably by Samsung, LG and HTC, but its not so much the handset that matters, rather the platform itself that is important. Android phones dominated sales with 33.3 million handset sales, growing 600% and edging Nokia off the top spot. Apple and RIM seem some way behind, selling 16.2 million and 14.6 million units respectively by the end of 2010.
In the near future RIM are looking to make a move into the lucrative and yet Apple/Android dominated tablet market, with the upcoming release of the BlackBerry Playbook. They must hope that some of that brand loyalty will carry users over from their established and new markets. If Apple were to make a similar yet opposite move and release the oft rumored ‘iPhone Nano’, a smaller, affordable iOS device, it could be seen as an aggressive maneuver to expand out from the high end handset market, into territory that is currently being gobbled up by RIM in both the UK and also the US and Latin America. Whilst Apple have never been closely associated with the words ‘cheap’ or ‘affordable’, this could help them win back some of this market share from Google and possibly spell trouble for RIM.
However, it begs the question, do Apple really need to make such a move to attack Google’s dominance? Further figures this time from Asymco- (seriously, who comes up with these names?) shows Apple ending 2010 having gobbled up a staggering 51% of the entire mobile industry’s profit pie chart. In any event, if Apple ever were to make such a move, they may find themselves having to physically prize the phones out of the hands of hoards of loyal BlackBerry addicts, before they can take over any of RIM’s market.
We love us a good new handset colourway on Omio, and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G appearing in a lovely pink hue is no exception.
This slender refurb to the Pearl range might rock an 12-button alphanumeric keyboard rather than the familiar QWERTY effort that BlackBerry has become synonymous with, but this hasn’t hindered the handset in the slightest.
Still equipped with RIM’s fantastic line in messaging and connectivity, the Pearl 3G has a 3.2-megapixel camera and dedicated media keys to ensure that the handset is equally comfortable at work and play.
Available on Vodafone deals from £25 per month offering 500 minutes and unlimited texts as well as 500MB of internet data, the pink BlackBerry Pearl 3G will be gracing VIP tables and designer purses from today.
The Pearl 3G is currently only on Vodafone in pink, but Blackberry are currently not making any promises that this is exclusive to the network…so you might want to hold out if you simply must have your phone match your outfit.
Canadian phone maker RIM have issued a heated response to the United Arab Emirates government’s ban on the use of BlackBerry devices in the country from October 11th, calling the situation “not a BlackBerry-only issue”.
Citing security concerns – namely that the BlackBerry servers were too securely encrypted for the government to monitor and regulate content distributed on the devices – the UAE telecoms regulator will be severing internet, mail and messaging for the 500,000 subscribers currently residing there. The ban will also extend to visitors to the country, with travellers being required to hand them in at the nation’s border.
RIM’s co-CEO Michael Lazardis defends the company against the situation, claiming that the handset ban was merely a political power play.
“This is about the internet,” Mr. Lazaridis said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “Everything on the internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can’t deal with the internet, they should shut it off.”
Nevertheless, BlackBerry are in negotiations with the various territories in question, hot on the heels of word that officials in both Indonesia and Egypt wish to follow suit in the ban unless RIM relax their security and allow governments to snoop on users.
The situation casts a shadow over the manufacturer’s recent high-profile unveiling of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 (above left), a handset that they claim to be the ‘best BlackBerry yet’. An amalgam of the touchscreen-driven Storm and full QWERTY experience found in the Bold range of devices, the Torch is RIM’s first ever slider device, and also marks the debut of a ‘simpler and more intuitive’ BlackBerry 6 operating system.
Early reactions were mixed, which whilst impressive and a strong offering by BlackBerry standards, was not considered by critics enough of an evolutionary leap to compete favourably with the iPhone 4 or the current swathe of Android smartphones. The Torch is available now, exclusively on AT&T in the US, and has been ranged by both Orange and Vodafone for a UK launch later in the year.
A YouGov survey has shown that the number of consumers considering a Nokia for their next phone has fallen by 12% since last year.
Only 34% of shoppers would current consider a Nokia as a follow-up to their current handset, as opposed to nearly 50% in 2009.
Nevertheless, Nokia loyalty saw the manufacturer continue to place above both BlackBerry and HTC in terms of phone favour, with 31% and 28% opting for the other two brands respectively.
Speaking to 2,121 smartphone fans at the beginning of last month, YouGov polled the users about their mobile likes and dislikes, finding that a whopping 70% would recommend Apple’s iPhone to others, whilst 56% were considering the handset and 41% were fully expecting to opt for the fruity device next time round.
Contrast that with Nokia’s painful 12% recommendation rating, and it’s clear to see that something needs to change for the manufacturer.
Reasons mentioned by those moving away from Nokia are the lack of available apps, and perceived poor quality of the operating system, as well as merely wanting a change of brand.
Russell Feldman, Research Manager in YouGov’s technology and telecoms team said:
“Where Nokia once led the market, it has drastically fallen by the wayside…significantly outperformed by both Apple’s Apps store and Android Marketplace. The results of our data consistently show that the market leader is fast becoming an also-ran in the smartphone market.
“New products, software and apps are needed soon if Nokia is to keep up with its rivals.”
It’s not a good time for the Finnish phone maker with Nokia fan sites closing left and right, as well as engaging in a very public war of words (which quickly became a legal one) with high profile Russian journalist Eldar Murtazin.
Nevertheless the development and promotion of apps in Ovi Store, the offer of full and free navigation with Ovi Maps, the investment in future platforms with Symbian and MeeGo as well as a real effort in new handsets like the Nokia N8 show that the manufacturer is realising that a lot needs to be done to regain smartphone supremacy.
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