BlackBerry Torch 9800 coming to Canada
In NYC today, Research in Motion officially unveiled its first slider smartphone. While AT&T will carry it stateside, Canadians will get it this fall through Bell Mobility. Here’s the scoop.
In case you haven’t felt the groundswell of hype surrounding the BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone, Canada’s own Research in Motion (RIM) took the wraps off its first smartphone that has both a 3.2-inch touchscreen display and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard (and touchpad) at the bottom of the unit.
More importantly, perhaps, is the fact the Torch will be RIM’s first smartphone to run its much-hyped BlackBerry 6 operating system, that promises iPhone-like features including a more graphical user-interface, a better web experience (now with tabbed browsing), universal search and an aggregation of social network profiles in one spot for easy updates.
You might’ve heard AT&T will carry the Torch 9800 beginning August 12, for $199.99 on a 2-year contract, but Canada will also get this smartphone by the “fall” through Bell Mobility. Sync asked for a price confirmation but was told the carrier isn’t able to disclose any details just yet.
Other specs of the 9800 include a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, 4GB of internal memory (and a 4GB microSD/SDHC card included in the box, as well) and integrated 3G (HSDPA), Wi-Fi N, GPS ad Stereo Bluetooth. Nothing overly unique, it seems, but lets hope they can improve in navigation, web browsing (something I’ve complained about for years) and media playback.
Oh, and there’s one more huge area of improvement required to compete with the iPhone: the Torch 9800 will also be the first smartphone with the new BlackBerry App World 2.0 pre-installed, a key weapon in its struggle to keep up with Apple’s App Store (with roughly 250,000 applications) and to a lesser extent, Google’s Android Market (now with more than 100,000 apps). By comparison, BlackBerry App World has approximately 7,000 downloadable applications, which are harder to find and more expensive to buy, generally speaking.
Despite the fact RIM last week registered the domain BlackPad.com, no word of a BlackBerry 6-powered tablet was announced today. No “iPad-killer” — yet.
Here’s a look at the BlackBerry 6 operating system in action:
Sync readers, what are your thoughts on the BlackBerry Torch 9800? Do you think they can (or should) compete with iPhone, Android, and others? Will they lose their core audience while trying to gain new ones?
I am an “old” MarketingBusiness guy(BB).
My RIM “world phone” is used for work, visiting my Grandkids in Europe & even as primary phone at my BC Gulf Islands home.I am not an artist so don’t use MAC computer technology.
You young people (geeks) as exciting & amazing as you all are with current IT technology but, don’t fully comprehend business processes, or the marketing cost of product introduction, or size of the US market compared to Canada etc. need to just grow up!
The rest of the world’s major organizations (& I) have found RIM Blackberrys user friendly, high security tech to be world beating – witness its use by major organizations, throughout the world.
I happily await the RIM “Torch” product that offers better keyboard utility ( for bigger hands) better screen size (for older eyes), better access to key Aps, a better b/i camera & overall better interface with my lap top( one screen delivers all available content).
Hey – but what do I know.
hey for all of you complaining about why USA get the device first before Canada. The funny thing is that Japan is (or was) the most technologically advanced country in the world and Japanese companies start selling to people in USA before selling to Japan! Someone told me that one reason was because there’s a bigger market in the USA and countries around the world gave the USA a “special privilege” status. Life’s not fair I know.
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Got the Torch October 22, dropped in a 16 GIG…great phone. Great phone! Thanks RIM
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