BlackBerry Storm Launches in France
By Simon Sage on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 9:28 AM PST In BlackBerry, Vodafone
Available for preorder tomorrow and hitting shelves December 3rd., carrier SFR has the BlackBerry Storm locked and loaded for the populace of France. Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) owns a 44% stake in SFR, so they’ve kindly extended their European exclusive of the BlackBerry 9500, with many more partners likely to get it before the end of December rolls around. One thing I’m looking forward to with the Storm is improved language support thanks to the virtual keypad, as shown in the video demo with the French AZERTY layout. The BlackBerry Storm price will sit at 99€ on contract, 399€ without. Hit up SFR’s flash site to get availability notifications by e-mail. J’espére qu’on aura le Storm en Quebec prochainement. 
[via BlackBerry Cool]
Hi Simon, do you think that the device purchased without a contact is sim-unlocked?
Thanks!
Well, it’s not generally the case that phones are unlocked, even if they’re on contract, but maybe you’ve caught something on the site that my broken French somehow missed.
my frensh is very rusty now
It said phone alone 399€, that what I got, but doesn’t the French law force unlocked versions?remember the iphone one orange?!
Very true, Fisal!
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000573408&dateTexte=
Then odds of the contract-free (and may be even the on-contract) device being unlocked are pretty good. If we’ve got any readers in France available to scope it out, we’d love to hear from you!