We’ve really had it made the past few weeks with all the news about upcoming BlackBerry devices. Not 24 hours after I hit the publish button on last week’s News From The Wire, we got even more news. As I covered on the BBGeekcast last week, the BlackBerry 9800 — the slider — should be out by next month. Crazy, right? Not only that, but it figures to be an AT&T exclusive. This comes as even more of a surprise, because AT&T will likely release the iPhone 4G in the same month. Still, it’s good to know that soon after this round, we’ll see yet another round of BlackBerry releases.
T-Mobile not getting Pearl 9100?
The photo above comes via Mobile Syrup, which apparently found it from The Cellular Guru, though I can’t find the specific post on that site. In any case, it’s an unboxing of the BlackBerry Pearl 9100 from Rogers. A number of Canadian carriers, including Virgin Mobile Canada, will carry the hyped device. American carriers? We assumed that both T-Mobile and AT&T would carry it, but have yet to hear word on a potential release date. So what gives?
In what might be the biggest BlackBerry disappointment of the year, Ronen from BerryReview passes along a rumor that T-Mobile might pass on the Pearl 9100. That seems like such a shame. It’s not definite — hence the rumor tag — but word is that T-Mobile will instead get a 3G Curve, probably the rumored 9300. My question is the obvious one: why can’t they have both?
Tip of the week: QuickPull helps clear your BlackBerry memory. A slow device might be caused by low memory. Use free app QuickPull to take care of that.
Bold 9650 available from Sprint
It came as a surprise, but the BlackBerry Bold 9650 hit Sprint just a little earlier than expected. You can get it now, before Verizon customers get a crack at it. That should hit Big Red during the summer at the latest, though with Sprint already having it I don’t think they’ll wait too long.
Via CrackBerr, here’s an unboxing video.
Verizon to get LTE BlackBerry next year
It’s just a little snipped in a story, but in the third paragraph of this article the writing appears on the wall.
Motorola, HTC, LG and Research In Motion could also be among the first next year with phones for the Long Term Evolution (LTE) high-speed wireless network that Verizon plans to switch on later this year.
There is no mention of the RIM tablet, though others are mentioned. I guess that’s because the tablet will be a companion device requiring an external cellular radio. Oh well.
Roundup
Just a collection of links from the BlackBerry sphere.
- BerryReview has BIS 3.1 documentation. It’s nothing new, really. The biggest addition seems to be two-way contact sync with Yahoo! and Hotmail.
- The advantages of upgrading your BlackBerry. I run through the two upcoming models, the Pearl 9100 and Bold 9650, to see if an upgrade is worth the cost.
- T-Mobile gets colored BlackBerry handsets. That would be the Bold 9700 in white and the Curve 8520 in fuchsia. Not a white handset fan myself, but the Curve looks pretty sharp.
- Adding contacts to your BlackBerry address book and syncing contacts with Outlook. Could prove useful to some.
