BlackBerry 9670 Oxford Clamshell with Full QWERTY Leaked

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on April 20, 2010, at 9:28 PM
in News
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Comments: 13 responses
13 Comments

What a day for leaks! The BlackBerry 9670, a clamshell BlackBerry with OS 6, which seems to be a futuristic looking Pearl Flip, has been leaked online. The BlackBerry clamshell has been rumored to exist for ages, but only in patent form. The problem is that patents are constantly filed for a number of form factors, so there’s no telling which one will actually get manufactured. Well it turns out the 9670 clamshell is a real device and is running some pretty awesome specs.

So far we know the BlackBerry 9670 is a CDMA device with WiFi, a 360×480 display, trackpad, OS 6, microUSB, microSD, and a 5MP camera!

This device looks great but you have to wonder if it will be a success. RIM doesn’t have a great track record with clamshell/flip form factors. Have you ever seen anyone in public rocking a Pearl Flip? It happens very rarely. While we will never truly learn device specific sales because RIM keeps it secret, we can speculate from the fact that many developers avoid the Pearl Flip in porting that it’s probably not a big device sales-wise. Was it the flip form factor or the fact that the Pearl Flip had other deficiencies? It will be interesting to see how this device pans out.

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  • http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/vendor/1111 Eric at Ebscer

    That is really really ugly…

  • Steve Dallas

    Oh geeze. What were they thinking? Have they even looked at any of the other popular phone form factors out there. Sliders are good – but typically they are LANDSCAPE-ORIENTED RIM so it is going to be interesting how your portrait-oriented model does.

    With the OS 6.0 it will require storm-sized screen so why not build another sample of a device with that much viewing area? Look at the success of the DROID and iPhone devices. Not a clamshell in the bunch. Hell, how successful was your Pearl flip?

    Put this thing out of its misery.

  • rh

    I see more Pearl Flips than I do palm pres or android mytouch devices. It is a reasonably popular device in my area. Lots of people still want the clam shell.

  • StreetMeatSteve

    Holy crap that's ugly. Huge mistake if RIM releases this phone.

  • http://caspan.com Caspan

    They need to make the screen a polished mirror that it transparent when the screen is on. That way women can use it as a mirror and maybe they will sell a few. It's an Okay looking device I love flip phones and the fact that the screen is protected when in your pocket!

  • dirtymeltorme

    What focus group decided this would be a good idea? I would love to work for RIMs marketing department – where coming up with fail like this is somehow acceptable. Nothing like encouraging sales by putting what will likely be another mediocre OS update with 6.0 on there. Between this and Mike's comments about touchscreen devices and the correlation that 6.0 has “huge touchscreen implications”, RIM is on a roll. To think, I was considering investing in RIM not so long ago. Please prove me wrong.

  • Billy

    Wow. I disagree with most of the comments here. This is a cool phone. People still like clamshell phones and this very sexy looking … well mostly. I am not certain about the shiny metal material .. but the shape looks awesome.

    RIM makes a whole line of phones for people in different demographics. Pearl, bold, flip, with camera, without camera …etc… This is another option in that line.

    I think there is certainly a market for a fully qwerty, smartphone, clamshell. Nobody really has that so RIM might have niche demographic buying them up.

    @dirtymeltorme — Please go read the updated articles on what Mike actually said on touchscreen devices. Kyle updated with the latest.

  • http://blackberrycool.com/ Matt Cameron

    Pro- RIM competing in many different form factors. Exposing flip-phone, candy-bar, slider and touchscreen users to a great smartphone platform.

    Con- Device fragmentation: all these different form factors, resolutions, and inputs schemes put hurdles in from of developers. All this extra porting means more development costs for all the developers for every app on the platform.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1005280014 Alesia Matson

    Except for it being CDMA, it has everything I want in a BB.

    I guess there always has to be something missing….

  • http://blackberrycool.com/ Matt Cameron

    Pro- RIM competing in many different form factors. Exposing flip-phone, candy-bar, slider and touchscreen users to a great smartphone platform.

    Con- Device fragmentation: all these different form factors, resolutions, and inputs schemes put hurdles in from of developers. All this extra porting means more development costs for all the developers for every app on the platform.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1005280014 Alesia Matson

    Except for it being CDMA, it has everything I want in a BB.

    I guess there always has to be something missing….

  • http://digg.com/users/OmegaWolf Silver Fang

    This is an ugly customer, but it has nice specs, so I'd snap it up if it came available for Boost (yeah, right).

  • Boo

    I so want this. I like flip phones and this looks like the best yet — A BB with Great specs, a protected screen and full keyboard. I'm happy.