RIM have announced an upgrade to their popular and affordable Curve range of handsets. The BlackBerry Curve 9320 will have all the core functionality of that users have come to expect, although offer no real surprises.
Being an entry level classic BlackBerry, the focus here leans towards function and affordability over spec-sheet. We have the usual 2.4″ screen and QWERTY keypad. Push Email, Facebook and Twitter integration via apps is present and accounted for, whilst the BBM service for instant, always-on communication now has it’s own button for easy access.
Onboard is an MP3 player with FM radio for music on the move, plus a 3MP camera with LED Flash for capturing moments when something bigger is out of reach.
GPS maps, and internet access also round off the ‘smart’ functionality, whilst global 3G compatibility, 512mb onboard with 32GB microSD storage and a good sized 1450mAh battery will mean that the Curve 9320 will travel well abroad too.
The Curve 9320 will run the latest version of BlackBerry OS 7.1, although it is unlikely that this will be upgradeable to the upcoming BlackBerry 10, which seems to be more geared towards touch-screen handsets.
T-Mobile are the first to announce availability of the 9320, offering it free from £15.50 p/m on a 24month contract.
This will net you 100mins call time, unlimited texts (flexible booster) and 250MB of data.
Alternatively they are also offering the handset off-contract for £149.99, making it a cheap and chirpy communicator, or a functional second handset.
Keep an eye on Omio’s deals page for offers on the BlackBerry Curve 9320 from other networks as they emerge.
Research In Motion yesterday previewed features that we can expect from their upcoming BlackBerry 10 mobile software, proving that despite a year of continuing setbacks, the beleaguered mobile company still has some innovations up its sleeve.
New RIM CEO Thorsten Heins used his first BlackBerry World conference to reveal a swish new keyboard for their upcoming touchscreen handsets, as well as a time-travelling camera app that should prevent missed smiles and blinking in pictures!
All this was shown on an early developer’s handset, that was essentially a scaled down version of their PlayBook tablet.
A new virtual keyboard may not sound like the most compelling of announcements, but for a company that holds messaging so central to it’s core identity, it is definitely important to get right.
On first impressions the keyboard looks nice and spacious, with plenty of room for even the larger thumbed among us to glide around. Each row of letters is separated, with a clear dead zone in order to minimise miss-pressed keys, that also allows space for predictive word suggestions to appear.
The new software will be able to scan a user’s previous messages in order to make word lists for predictive typing and auto-correct, something that would usually take some time to adapt to, but in this case will be available straight away after setting up the handset.
In addition to this, the hit points of individual keys will adapt dynamically to the natural typing of the user, great news for those of us who always miss the same buttons!
Lastly the keyboard software will incorporate a number of touch gestures, for instance horizontal swipes to delete entries and vertical swipes to switch from letters to numbers, or to select text suggestions.
For those of you who are quite happy with your touchscreen typing, the prospect of a time-travelling camera may hold more appeal.
Everyone’s taken a picture, only to find that someone has blinked or pulled an involuntary stupid face just as the shutter clicks.
The camera app in BlackBerry 10 will take a number of images before and after the shot, and will allow you to glide either forwards or backwards in time to get the perfect snap.
The demo previewed on stage suggested that faces can be independently manipulated, receiving a rapturous reception from the audience.
It’s a nice idea that had the ‘wow’ factor, and could save you from some spoiled photo’s, but we’re still holding out for a Blade Runner style camera software that can look round corners.
Whilst there is no indication that RIM are to ditch the physical keyboard completely – something that has been a unique selling point for the BlackBerry - it is good to see them try to innovate in a field that they have struggled to compete in, that of the Android and iPhone dominated touchscreen market.
To say that RIM have had a bad year would be an understatement. A massive loss of service in October 2011 affecting tens of millions of users saw their reputation as the last word in reliability in tatters.
Add to this a drop in market share from 10% to 5%, and shares dropping 77%, it was little surprise when co-founders Mike Lazardis and Jim Balsillie stood down as joint CEOs back in January.
New CEO Thorsten Heins recently announced a renewed focus on the business markets in an attempt to consolidate the company’s strengths and core values.
Whilst the announcement of a flashy camera app will attract some headlines, we’re happier to see the messaging interface being given some due care and attention.
For a wide range of deals on BlackBerry handsets, see Omio’s deals page.
Nokia is not the only manufacturer tapping into an explosion of smartphone interest in the developing world, with RIM unveiling the BlackBerry Curve 9220 for the Indian market.
An incremental upgrade on the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and powered by OS 7.1, the Curve 9220 is equipped with all of the familiar entry-level features including a 2-megapixel rear camera and 2.4-inch QVGA screen alongside a full QWERTY keyboard, although possessing solely 2G connectivity.
WiFi and a built-in radio are both on board, whilst the 9220 has a unique selling point in having the longest battery life for a Curve smartphone at 7 hours talktime, with 28 hours of music playback.
“The new BlackBerry Curve 9220 offers a unique mobile experience that young Indians will love thanks to its affordable pricing and unmatched messaging and social connectivity features,” said Sunil Dutt, Managing Director for India at RIM.
In an effort to also induce engagement with BlackBerry App World, the Curve 9220 comes with an offer to download 2500 Rupees worth of content (about £30) for free, up until the end of June.
Available from April 19th at a cost of Rs10,990 (£133), the Curve 9220 might seem steep against the current crop of feature-rich Android smartphones, but it may well serve the enduring popularity of BlackBerry as a brand in other parts of the world.
The huge size of the Galaxy Note is the main reason to buy it: no other smartphone has such a big, beautiful screen.
However, the size also creates a number of issues, short battery life and sheer unwieldiness being chief among them. If you can live with these drawbacks, you’ll find that this is one of the most powerful Android smart phones around, tackling apps and media with aplomb.
There are very few things we can complain about with the Samsung Galaxy Note. Samsung has taken what is already a brilliant handset and built on it to make an even better one.
The problem is – is it a handset or is it a tablet? In our mind, forget the ‘S-Pen’ and just concentrate on this being a large phone and PMP and you can’t go wrong. And then, the only choice you have to make is “is it too big for me?”
Large in size, humongous in potential, the Samsung Galaxy Note might not be a first smartphone for the masses, what it is however, is a device that will enhance the experience of many a business user.
The Note’s only downfall in popularity is in how much it has limited its prospective target audience.
With its weighty price tag and corporate looks, the Bold 9790 is unlikely to be the BlackBerry you buy yourself…even BlackBerry’s faithful teenage army will either be priced out or put off by its steely feel.
For all other smart phone users, BlackBerry 7 OS on the Bold 9790 doesn’t offer anything show-stopping enough to make this handset worth considering over the vastly surperior Android and Apple operating systems — thanks to its paucity of apps and the dated, text-heavy interface lurking beneath its shiny surface.
If you were to take the BlackBerry Bold 9900 out of the equation and judge the BlackBerry Bold 9790 on its own merits, you could quite confidently say it’s a cracking little phone.
We’re not massively excited by it but, geek-speak aside, just the specs alone make it worthy of a £350/$450 SIM-free price tag.
From £15 per month on a two-year contract, the Nokia Lumia 710 is a very respectable mid-range smart phone, with a beefy 1.4GHz chip and a slick OS. We welcome high-end features such as Nokia’s free streaming music and sat-nav apps, and Microsoft’s suite of Office and cloud storage services.
If you’re a huge fan of Facebook and are particularly partial to Windows Phone, the 710 is a decent mid-range choice. For everyone else, your money will go further if you buy into iOS’ or Android’s much more mature app markets.
Although we would buy the Nokia Lumia 710 over the HTC Radar, it’s overshadowed by the Nokia Lumia 800, which impressed us a lot more and makes the Nokia Lumia 710 feel more like its cheaper relative than we would have liked. We know that the phone costs less, but the cost savings feel too apparent.
Don’t view the Nokia Lumia 710 as the poor man’s Lumia 800. This is a cracking budget smartphone in its own right: it feels more reliable and much faster than the average budget Android phone, and the tile-based Windows Phone 7 user interface is a joy to poke around.
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!
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