Industry coverage, news, original feature articles, how to guides, videos, podcasts and reviews of BlackBerry service providers, software, accessories, hosted exchange providers and more

There’s no reason to bury the lead: Vodafone is the first to introduce the BlackBerry Storm 2. It’s everything we expected, featuring a 360 x 480 pixel, 3.25-inch touch screen with improved SurePress technology, WiFi, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and more. We’re not far from launch: it will hit Vodafone shelves on October 26 — for free with a two-year commitment to a £35 monthly plan. That’s certainly the right price, but don’t expect Verizon to follow suit (even though Verizon Wireless is partly owned by Vodafone). We have plenty more Storm 2 goodies to come in this week’s News From The Wire.

We begin our journey with the video from the official site.

Okay, so maybe that was a little lame. What else do you expect from the manufacturer? The real, substantial content always comes from third parties anyway. What better place, then, than CrackBerry to get the full-on review? Kevin got his review unit yesterday — yesterday! It appears he got work right away, as he posted a monster review of the Storm 2. In case you don’t want to read the behemoth of an article, I will explain. No, there is too much. I will sum up.

No, there’s still too much. Just go read the review. I promise, Kevin made it pretty skimmable. In lieu of a summary, here are some pretty pictures.

If you value brevity in your reviews, you can head over to Salomondrin’s review, which is more video and less text. That’s sure to go over well with some of the BlackBerry geeks out there. The key line in this: “The screen’s response is perfect at all times.” Perfect at all times. That’s quite a bold statement. The conclusion seals it, though:

I’m all in for this phone, and I’m using as my daily driver and I’m loving it. Because of my job I e-mail a lot, and so far I can’t complain about the touchscreen capabilities. I mean what’s there not to love? You got a bigger screen, fast texting, a lot of memory space, WiFi, great reception, and great voice quality (Same as a Tour). If you are looking for a touchscreen device that will have the best e-mail experience all around please look no further, the Storm 2 is exactly what you were looking for.

The video is equally impressive (and you can probably watch the nine-minute video in less time than it would take to read Kevin’s review).

So where is Verizon on this, you ask? Well, they’ve received dummy units, which is a good sign. My guess for the delay in announcement: they had to wait for the Verizon Guy to finish up his appearance on The Price Is Right. Once that happens, you’ll get an announcement from Verizon. Even better, it looks like the Storm 2 will be part of the buy one, get one deal, though that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Also, make sure to check our our best BlackBerry Storm accessories.

To love RIM, or not to love RIM?

Financial analyst Fabrice Taylor is a BlackBerry user. Or, at least, he prefers the BlackBerry to the iPhone. But that doesn’t cloud his judgement. No. In a recent Globe and Mail column, he posts that RIM’s best days are behind it. He leads with evidence of price to earnings ratio, which is at just 13 times, not a good indicator. Other analysts feel that it’s a low number that will come back up, but that remains to be seen. We’ll see how this year’s remaining device releases affect that figure.

RIM’s glory days are behind it. Best-case scenario is that it keeps growing in terms of business and deteriorating in terms of returns to investors. The worst case is that it ends up on the technological slag heap like so many once-profitable and successful firms.

It’s not a complicated story. RIM is facing intense and growing competition. Even if it stickhandles its way through it flawlessly, its business will be hurt by it. There’s the iPhone, of course. Personally, I prefer the BlackBerry, but Apple is gaining market share.

Furthermore, he notes, RIM’s No. 1 customer, Verizon, has agreed to sell Android handsets. Android will take some smartphone market share as it is, and that they’re infiltrating RIM’s best customer makes things worse for RIM. One of my favorite financial sites, Motley Fool, echoes these concerns, but says there’s still hope for RIM. While the company figures to lose market share, they should still grow, and rapidly. In fact, by the fourth quarter 2010, it is estimated that RIM will have 65 million active users. That’s a decent growth rate, though not quite like RIM going from 14 million users to over 40 million in the past two years and change.

From where I stand, this is a good thing. RIM will continue to grow, so they have incentive to pump out new devices and software. The smartphone market figures to grow rapidly over the next few years. In order to fuel this growth, the market will require a variety of devices in order to flourish. In other words, it will take more than just RIM pumping out remarkable devices. It will take improved iPhones from Apple, more Android devices from different manufacturers on different carriers, a better Windows Mobile experience, and a ton more. RIM isn’t in this alone, and naturally, competition will keep them from being the only game in town. But, as long as they continue growing it shouldn’t be a big issue.

There are still plenty of reasons to like RIM. This goes not only for investors and customers, but for carriers, too. In a RIM profile in the New York Times, co-CEO Mike Lazaradis notes that the BlackBerry’s low cost means more profit for carriers. “We help carriers be profitable,” he said. “We gave them a way to get into the data business. Now we are giving them a way to manage their costs when they are worried that all they have to sell is highly subsidized smartphones.” There’s more on Lazaridis in Forbes.

Tip of the week: Change your BlackBerry trackball sensitivity. Heavy scrollers might want to up the vertical sensitivity to 80. I tried it, and I’m not going back.

BlackBerry Bold 2 (9700) details become clearer

Last week we learned that both AT&T and T-Mobile will announce the BlackBerry Bold 2, a/k/a the 9700, a/k/a the Onyx, on October 21. That’s just the announcement, though. What we really want to know is when it will launch. That picture became clearer this week, as we learned that it will hit T-Mo shelves on November 11. That’s about two weeks behind Rogers, which will release the device on October 26.

So where is AT&T on this? They’ll presumably launch the device at the same time as T-Mobile, seeing as they’re both announcing it on the same day. In the meantime, they’re releasing the Bold 9000 in white for $199.99 on October 18. Hopefully this doesn’t mean some kind of delay tot he Bold 2.

While we’re on the Bold topic: white Bold to Rogers, original black version to Bell.

Also, if you’ve got some nerd blood in you, check out this: BlackBerry Bold 9700 user guide. Yeah, that’s about as nerdy as you can get. But we welcome that here BBGeeks.

Other device news: T-Mobile has launched the BlackBerry Curve 8520 in white. What is it with white phones? A BlackBerryOS thread reminds us that Verizon should get the Curve 8530 sometime in November, for those who want a QWERTY keyboard and optical trackpad. And Salomondrin previews the BlackBerry Atlas browser:

Bonus tip of the week: Why you shouldn’t buy a BlackBerry on Craigslist. It’s a pretty weird story.

Software news

To round out the week, here’s some software news:

• The Weather Channel is now offering a free, ad-supported app. You can get it for the Curve, Bold, and Tour here or the Storm here.
• It’s still not exactly perfect yet, but PhonePlus Callback is as good as it gets for responding to missed calls while you’re busy.
• Check out our updated walk through of TwitterBerry.
• There’s a Google Voice update. Google also announced that they’d be giving invites to current users. I don’t see any in my account as of this writing, though.
• The 7digital music store is now available in Canada.
• Any fellow bibliophiles out there? They you might want the free Dictionary.com app. I downloaded mine immediately after finding out.
• Remember that browser security issue? Here’s a roundup of fixes.

Share on Facebook | Add to De.licio.us | Digg This! | Technorati