The New Touchscreen Product from BlackBerry Thunder
Posted by: randi / Tags: BlackBerry,Handhelds,iPhone,Research In Motion,Smartphone,Touchscreen,Verizon,VodafoneThese keyboard skins are from a fairly early build of the Thunder’s 4.7 OS (the final release keyboard skins are sure to be sexier), but you can easily tell from the images the user-experience RIM is going after here… they want typing on the Thunder to be EASY. That means a lot of screen real estate dedicated to the keyboard, which makes room for big keys that are easy to locate and tap. RIM is famous for the ‘BlackBerry Prayer’ position users assume when typing messages on their devices and it looks like that won’t change with the introduction of the touchscreen Thunder… you should be able to grip the device with both hands and pound out emails with both thumbs blazing.
The images also provide further confirmation that the Thunder’s operating system will still rely heavily on the BlackBerry menu button for key functions and advanced options vs putting all options on the main screen as the iPhone does. I’d assume hitting the menu key while on the Compose Message screens shown in these images should provide the standard BlackBerry menu options such as Send, Copy/Paste, Save Draft, Check Spelling, Attach file, etc.
Since we were the first ones to break the news about a touchscreen BlackBerry device, it’s only fitting that we follow up and give y’all the real lowdown on it! This is going to excite a lot of people, but anger many. Are you ready? The BlackBerry Thunder, as it is codenamed now, (all you “reporting” on it as the Storm are incorrect) will launch in Q3 of this year. It is a full touchscreen BlackBerry — no slide out keyboard — with only 4 physical keys. Those are the send / end phone keys, the BlackBerry menu key, and the back key. Here is the most interesting part, though: it will launch as a worldwide lifetime exclusive on Verizon and Vodafone! We’ve heard the unit will be a hybrid device with CDMA EV-DO Rev. C (for clarification, Rev C., known as UMB is practically dead. If the device will indeed launch with a 4G solution, our bet is on LTE), and GSM HSPA for traveling internationally. Verizon and Vodafone will have the same unit. Currently, the model number is the BlackBerry 9500, though it’s very early and that’s likely to change. This is HUGE for the Verizon lovers. For once they’ll get an exclusive device, but Verizon will have a sales quota for the device and if they don’t meet those numbers, we’ve heard the exclusivity will then dissolve and it’s over. This will be extremely interesting to see play out.
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Tags: BlackBerry, Handhelds, iPhone, Research In Motion, Smartphone, Touchscreen, Verizon, Vodafone