Blackberry Phones

If you’ve avoided loading up the previously leaked OS 6.0.0.407  onto your BlackBerry Style no need to worry about that now. Sprint, has made the OS an official release and is available for all to download. Hit the link and get your update on as soon as you can. Of course, if you have the leak already installed you can just ignore this and be on your way.

Been holding out for the other large CDMA carrier in Canada to get the BlackBerry Style? If so, you can now head on over to the Bell Mobility website and pick up the all new BlackBerry Style for only $49.95 on a new 3-year contract. of course, if you’re not looking to lock yourself in like that you can opt for the 2-year at 349.95 or 1-year at $374.95. And finally, you avoid that whole contract mess by ouright purchasing the device for #399.95. Don’t forget, we gave the BlackBerry Style a pretty good run through in an earlier review so be sure to have a look at that before hitting up the Bell site.

Click Here To View The BlackBerry Style 9670 On The Bell Mobility Website

Chalk this one up as another case of big box outlets outing carrier device prices even before the carriers get a chance to announce them. Future Shop, has posted the BlackBerry Style 9670 pricing for TELUS on their website. As was mentioned previously, BlackBerry Style dummy units have already arrived at TELUS. With this information now being posted up, it’s pretty safe to assume that we’ll get to see an “in time for the holidays” launch of the BlackBerry Style for TELUS’ remaining CDMA users. Just remember folks, this is a CDMA only device it cannot be unlock for use on Rogers or any other GSM carrier and that’s $49.99 with a 3-year contract.

TELUS was quick to confirm they’d also be releasing the BlackBerry Style 9670  shortly after the initial Sprint announcement but no official date was actually set at that time. But, given that the dummy unit devices are now showing up at retail locations launch surely cannot be far off. There is a suggested price of $399.99 outright being put out there but of course, that’s all subject to change at any point. Be sure to check out our full BlackBerry Style break down for specs, videos and pics. Anyone on TELUS going to be grabbing one up once released?

Just in case all the talk of the BlackBerry Bold 9780 releasing in Canada was driving you crazy because what you really want is red BlackBerry Torch or BlackBerry Style  then this news may be more to your liking. It seems as though both the red Torch and BlackBerry Style will be shipped off to Bell locations across Canada starting on November 15th with device purchasing going live on November 23rd.

The red Torch is suggested to cost $179.99 with a 3-year contract while the BlackBerry Style retail price is said to be $399.99. The contract pricing for the Style at this point was not available. Which would drop the cost to something a little more realistic with contract terms but I’m sure that will pop up soon enough.

On the last RIM earnings call, Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said we’d see some “acceleration” from RIM towards the end of the calendar year. After what was an extremely quiet start of 2010 on the new BlackBerry front, over the last few months RIM has pushed out and/or announced a bunch of new devices onto the market. Along with BlackBerry 6, we saw the Pearl 3G and Bold 9650 get announced at WES. The Curve 3Gs followed suit as did the BlackBerry Torch. And now in what felt like rapid succession, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet got announced as did the BlackBerry Style and BlackBerry Bold 9780. With all of the above now announced and/or out on the market, our CrackBerry minds can’t help but wonder What’s Next??

Normally the blogs tend to be six months or so ahead of what’s hitting the market, but at this point in time things are actually pretty quiet and murky on the rumor mill front.  Either RIM has been getting better at keeping their secrets secret, or else it feels like we might be entering a bit of a lull as far as new device announcements go. There were rumors of the BlackBerry Storm2 9570 refresh coming, which was then followed by rumors of it getting cancelled (of course that device was never officially announced, so you can’t really say it was officially cancelled either). A touchscreen version of the BlackBerry Bold 9780 (Onyx III, Dakota) has been talked about forever now, but with the 9780 just hitting the market this month you’d think any update to that form factor would have to be at least six months out so the 9780 itself has some time to sell on the market before getting upstaged. We also have yet to actually see any pre-release videos/photos of this one, so it’s hard to say where it’s at. Of course there was also that potential BlackBerry Storm 3 photo that surfaced at the end of September that raised our eyebrows, but the details on this one still seem murky too, especially where the operating system is concerned. Will the next Storm be running BlackBerry 6 (quicker to market) or could it be rocking QNX (longer to market)?

After seeing the BlackBerry PlayBook get announced with the new BlackBerry Tablet OS, the prevailing train of thought since then is that the QNX-based OS will ultimately become the future operating system of not only RIM’s tablets, but their Smartphones as well. With the current generation of BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry 6, the question on everybody’s mind right now is what will the next generation of BlackBerry devices run? Will we see one more new iteration of BlackBerry phone hardware (an upgrade in every brand line – Curve, Bold, Torch, etc.) hit the market that’s running BlackBerry 6 and some slightly beefed up hardware specs? Or is RIM going to ride out this newly announced generation of hardware for longer than normal in order to revamp the next generation of BlackBerry Smartphones to be QNX-based and run even beefier hardware specs. With the PlayBook hitting with relatively cutting edge specs, you’d almost think/hope that will be RIM’s attitude on their QNX-based phones when they ultimately hit too (at least with some of them – I’m sure they’ll want to keep low cost device choices aplenty too), vs. what we’ve seen over the past couple of years of going with a more middle ground hardware specs approach.

Speaking to a lot of people post DevCon and the announcement of the BlackBerry PlayBook and Tablet OS, pretty much everyone figured it would take RIM a year (from DevCon) assuming things go smoothly to get the Tablet OS into BlackBerry phones. RIM are pros at radio codes, so hopefully writing the QNX 3G/4G stacks won’t prove too much of a problem (heck, maybe they’re already done), but aside from that there is obviously still a ton of work to do.

So that brings us back to what’s next? If you go on the notion we’re still ~11 months away from seeing a BlackBerry phone rock the QNX operating system, you almost have to assume there’ll be another fleet of BlackBerry 6 devices hitting the market in the not so distant future. And if that’s the case, it could be at this moment we’re experiencing the calm before another storm.

Ahh, the fun and games of a CrackBerry addict. Exciting times. I can’t wait to pick up a BlackBerry Bold 9780, and can’t wait to see what RIM has up its sleeves next!

We’ll be following up shortly with our full BlackBerry Style 9670 review, but in the meantime figured we’d throw up our initial hands-on video impressions to ease the wait for all the flip phone lovers out there. The BlackBerry Style will be available from Sprint starting this halloween, October 31st for $99.99 on a 2 year contract (see announcement). It’s an attractive price for what really is a solid little BlackBerry. If you’re a fan of flip phones, you’ll definitely want to head into a Sprint store and put yours hands on one. I’m not sure photos or even video quite do the Style justice.

To be honest, my expectations for the BlackBerry Style were set pretty low. The pre-release photos that leaked out onto the net didn’t show off the 9670 in the best of light, and heck, we even ran a poll  on CrackBerry here asking readers whether the Style was Hot or Not, and a full 81% of respondents said Not and that RIM should just skip the 9670 and move on to the next device. Ouch. Painful. But after using the Style I can definitely see why Sprint wanted this phone and why RIM built it. With 512MB flash memory, BlackBerry 6, 5 megapixel camera and a decently sized screen, the Style has solid specs and serves up pretty snappy performance. There is a big user base of people out there who simply love the flip phone form factor and who want a full physical keyboard. The BlackBerry Style fills that void. Check out the video above to see the Royal Purple BlackBerry Style in action, and stay tuned for the full review!

A lot of folks were surprised to see the BlackBerry Style  arrive. While the device is not evolutionary it certainly carries well, it’s own Style. Some folks love the device while others, simply do not like the design at all. The good folks over at the Inside BlackBerry blog though, have taken the time to interview Randy Carson. Randy, is the product manager for the BlackBerry Style and lets us know some of the finer details about the device and how it all came together. One take away from the article that I found interesting:

What do you think will stand out when people first use it?

One thing I hear all the time is the difference between seeing photos and descriptions of the device and actually holding it in your hands. When you see and hold the BlackBerry Style you will immediately notice the elegant, premium design. Once the people start to use the BlackBerry Style smartphone, they will be amazed with the browser and other features of BlackBerry 6 – it’s familiar to longtime BlackBerry smartphone users, but also easy for those who are using a smartphone device for the first time

That question holds a lot of weight for me. I’ve never been too impressed with the overall look of the device and while it’s now starting to look better, I’m still holding my final take on the device for when I actually get to hold one. What do you all think now? Has the look of the device grown a little on you or are you still in the “I need to see the device and hold it” phase, like I am? I know some of you all out there already pre ordered.

Been wondering what product family Research in Motion was going to slot the upcoming BlackBerry 9670  clamshell into? Could it be a Pearl? Maybe a member of the Curve family? Nope. We’ve confirmed with multiple sources now that the new BlackBerry 6 toting flip is getting a new product family name of its own. Enter the BlackBerry Style. I guess consumers who go for a flip phone these days do have a particular sense of style, so maybe the BlackBerry Style name is a fitting one. With a name like Style we may see a ton of consumer and fashion focused BlackBerry Style Cases and BlackBerry Style Accessories emerge too.

So what do you think of the name? Like it? Love it? Hate it? I always find when I first hear the name of a new BlackBerry I don’t like it overly much… but then it grows on you, and it just sticks. I think that’s likely to be the case here too. Let us know what you think in the comments!