Rumors have been circulating for some time now that RIM would be giving their upcoming BlackBerry Onyx smartphone an optical trackpad, and now a live photo of the device seems to confirm that it does indeed depart from the traditional trackball. From RIM’s perspective the optical version is better as it requires no moving parts, is less likely to clog up with finger gunk, and should reduce in-warranty repairs.
Verizon have released details of their version of the BlackBerry Tour, which we now know will be released on July 12th. Priced at $199.99 with a two-year agreement, the Tour has both EVDO Rev.A for use in the US and UMTS HSPA 2100MHz support for high-speed access while roaming.
Celio are looking to broaden support for their REDFLY smartphone companion device, tipping compatibility with RIM’s handsets and potentially Google’s smartphone platform. The company is apparently looking into developing BlackBerry support for the REDFLY devices by the end of 2009, with Android likely to be the next candidate after that.
We’ve been singularly cellularly obsessed here at SlashGear over the past seven days, and it’ll come as no surprise that the run-up to the iPhone 3G S has occupied much of our attention. The new Apple smartphone may not look much different to its predecessor, but if our hands-on first impressions are anything to go by, Cupertino have done their best to make the user-experience as polished as the casing. Still, it’s not just shiny Apple hardware that’s caught our eye this week; Novatel Wireless’ GSM MiFi 2352 piqued our interest when we talked to the company themselves on Monday, and then proceeded to impress us considerably in our full review.
RIM’s BlackBerry Onyx 9020 could be the second handset from the company to feature an optical trackpad instead of the usual trackball. While previous leaked shots of pre-release Onyx hardware have shown the smartphone with a trackball, according to the latest news from CrackBerry’s trusted sources the final production version will definitely get the trackpad.
Sprint and Verizon may be keeping relatively quiet about the BlackBerry Tour 9630’s functionality, but unsurprisingly RIM themselves are pretty keen to get the news out there about exactly what their new “world phone” can do. The smartphone is primarily intended to use CDMA EVDO Rev.A connectivity, but it also packs UMTS/HSPA 2100MHz support and quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE for use when abroad.
Elsewhere there’s a 480 x 340 resolution display, 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and image stabilization, and 256MB of onboard storage with a microSD card to augment that. The Tour 9630 also has GPS with support for photo geotagging.
Video overview after the cut
Verizon isn’t letting Sprint have all the BlackBerry Tour fun, and while there’s no official press release as yet the smartphone has shown up on the carrier’s site. Tipped for a Verizon launch back in May, when the smartphone was spotted in the carrier’s inventory system, there’s no sign of a specific release date.
After months of leaks regarding the handset, Sprint has announced that they will be offering the BlackBerry Tour. Packed with EVDO Rev.A and 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, the Tour also has 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA and quadband GSM for international roaming use; it’s expected to arrive “later this summer” in the US.
It looks, judging by these images, like someone has been faxing something they shouldn’t have, but when the leak is a detailed spec-sheet for the BlackBerry Tour 9630 we won’t quibble over it coming on thermal paper. According to MobileSyrup’s source, the Tour 9630 will arrive on Canadian carrier Bell in mid-July, bringing with it an HVGA 480 x 360 display, 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera with flash, quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA and 800/1900MHz EVDO Rev.A.
RIM’s BlackBerry Storm 2 may not have been confirmed by the company themselves yet, but that hasn’t stopped the handset showing up in the wild more than once. Now Engadget have had an opportunity to spend more than a few flighty seconds with the touchscreen follow-up; turns out, RIM have listened to criticism and dumped SurePress, replacing it with a more standard capacitive touchscreen.
Video hands-on after the cut
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