Analyst: BlackBerry Touchscreen Slider on the Way
By Simon Sage on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 9:25 AM PST In BlackBerry, Rumors
Shaw Wu from the Kaufman Bros. analyst firm has claimed that a 9900-series BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) is in prototype phases, packing a touchscreen slider form factor. The supposed device will mix the traditional BlackBerry style with the Storm, which makes me think it’ll be a portrait slider like the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre. Now, I’ve been calling for a slider BlackBerry for awhile now, and there have been similar rumors floating around about the 9100 Striker (although it’s in the Pearl family) and the landscape-oriented Mr. T; patent designs from RIM certainly show they’ve been thinking about it, but I’ll believe it when I see it. This new Storm 3 device has a lot of potential for appealing to consumers who still hate SurePress for typing, although it would go against the slim and trim look the latest BlackBerrys have been adopting. In any case, the 9900 should be landing sometime in 2010, according to Wu’s contacts in the supply chain, so cross your fingers.
[via Electronista]
[...] BlackBerry is said to be some sort of Storm-meets-classic-Blackberry-meets-slider concoction. As IntoMobile points out, the above patent image clearly gives some hint at what a legitimate BlackBerry slider [...]
Is the “droid killer”?
[...] The rumored Blackberry touchscreen plus physical keyboard device (codenamed “Mr. T”) is far along in development, according to Shaw Wu, a Kaufman Bros. analyst. The diagram to the right reveals one design possibility from a RIM patent. The device is expected to be released in 2010, according to Wu who claims to have contacts in RIM’s supply chain. [via Simon Sage @ IntoMobile.com]. [...]
I hope they don’t do a landscape “me too” device.
RIM needs to lead not follow. And one way to do this is make a touch-screen portrait mode slider. The slider keyboard could be a full QWERTY, which hasn’t been seen before.
Remember, blackberry’s are inherently portrait mode phone as are their users. So the slide keyboard in landscape mode would mean a busy business user turning the phone around and using two hands – I think not.
what carrier will carry this phone???????