The BlackBerry Style is official and has launched on most carriers for $99.99 on a 2 year contract (after a mail-in rebate). With TELUS, the Style will be $49.99 on a three year contract. The Style comes in steel gray and royal purple, as well as the standard black and features BlackBerry 6 out of the box.
The Style is an interesting form factor that has been hugely popular over the years but isn’t necessarily a modern trend. When you look at the devices that are gaining a lot of steam and popularity, a clamshell form factor doesn’t come to mind. Still, you can’t deny the prevalence of these devices and if anyone is going to do it at a good price point and modern design, it’s RIM. I’ve been using the device for about a month now, so lets take a deep look at this device, and see what it’s like. Hit the jump for the full review. Continue reading ‘BlackBerry Style 9670 Review: The First Clamshell, Full QWERTY BlackBerry’
The official video for the BlackBerry Style is up and the phone looks pretty cool. I could have done with less German candy rave music but it’s not terrible. The more we see of this device the better it looks. The Pearl Flip was actually a pretty cool device, and the ability to preview incoming messages on the phone was handier than a shirt with pockets. More to come!
It’s official, RIM and Sprint have introduced the BlackBerry Style 9670, which they’re billing as the “first full-QWERTY keyboard BlackBerry in a flip form factor.” The Style has two high rez dispays, allowing you to get a preview of messages, phone calls, music and calendar reminders. The Style will ship with BlackBerry 6, a WebKit browser, and integrated social feeds.
Other features of the BlackBerry Style include:
5MP camera with flash, autofocus and support for video recording
Available in Royal Purple and Steel Grey colors
External high resolution display (240 x 320), internal high resolution display (360 x 400)
The BlackBerry Style will be available nationally on Oct. 31 for $99.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate). Starting Tuesday, customers can also reserve the Steel Grey BlackBerry Style at sprint.com/bbstyle to be purchased on October 31. The Royal Purple color will be available in November.
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.
It was an interesting week at BlackBerryCool because of all the news around the Pearl 9100, the Storm2 and the BlackBerry (Bold?) Slider. The BlackBerry Bold Slider is 100% real and looks like a really interesting form factor move for RIM. As long as the screen ratio is maintained, developers won’t have a hard time accommodating a new form factor, which means there really is no reason to go ahead and see if consumers want it. The only thing that I’m apprehensive about are the tiny keys. The QWERTY keypad looks very cramped which is a deal breaker for me but someone with smaller fingers wouldn’t mind.
Also big news is the rumor (semi confirmed by a BlackBerryCool reader), that the Storm2 is under recall at Verizon and they have received a shipment of new “enhanced touchscreen” devices. If your Storm2 has been unresponsive, bring it in to your local rep and try and get a new device. This could have a pretty big impact on RIM if the recall spreads to other carriers and countries.
The Pearl 9100 has also been in the news a lot this week. It seems the device might be getting a full QWERTY keyboard, which would make the Bold Slider’s look large. There are also rumors that the Pearl Flip is getting a similar update and might also have a full QWERTY keyboard. It’s all up in the air right now but still interesting news pieces. Click through to catch up on a week of BlackBerry news, apps, themes, and leaks
