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BlackBerry Storm Launches in France

Categories: BlackBerry, Vodafone
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 9:28 AM
BlackBerry Storm from SFR

BlackBerry Storm from SFR

Available for preorder tomorrow and hitting shelves December 3rd., carrier SFR has the BlackBerry Storm locked and loaded for the populace of France. Vodafone 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]

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

  • fisal

    Hi Simon, do you think that the device purchased without a contact is sim-unlocked?

    Thanks!

  • Simon Sage

    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. ;)

  • fisal

    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?!

  • Simon Sage

    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!