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Analyst: BlackBerry Touchscreen Slider on the Way

Categories: BlackBerry, Rumors
By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 9:25 AM

Shaw Wu from the Kaufman Bros. analyst firm has claimed that a 9900-series BlackBerry 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 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]

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.

  • tRICKster

    Is the “droid killer”?

  • max

    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.

  • indian

    what carrier will carry this phone???????