TamsBlackBerry – the BlackBerry blog

We’ve covered Kohjinsha’s dual-screen notebook in the past – the critter has two 10.1″ panels which slide behind one another. Since then, something has changed…the box can now be had.

Geek Stuff 4U offers the box as follows:

Unfortunately, the first generation box is not too impressive. It weighs a chubby 1.84KG and costs about 1100 USD. This money gets you two 1024×600 panels and an Athlon Neo.

If the boys would be able to increase screen resolution or reduce prices significantly, this would be a killer – as it stands now, it is little more than a strike of genius with little practical potential…

My wife and I are currently on the look-out for an interesting BlackBerry from an Austrian carrier – and ended up in an Orange store.

The clerk there should have had a cheap Bold for us – but was out of stock. His explanation was the following (before he saw our press ID):

Well, guys – we are all out of stock for the bold.

But if you come back in a few weeks from now, we’ll have the Bold 2 for you!

So, any takers?

Apple and other manufacturers have had their fair share of fun with an otherwise unknown company called Klausner – these boys claim to hold patents on visual voicemail, and have sued quite a few manufacturers in the past.

BusinessWire now reports the following:

Klausner Technologies, Inc. announced today that it has filed suit against Research in Motion, Ltd. (NASDQ:RIMM) for patent infringement.

The lawsuit is based on the recent unveiling by RIM of certain new 3G “BlackBerry Bold 9700” mobile phones which use Klausner Technologies’ Visual Voicemail patented technology. Various Blackberry models with the Visual Voicemail feature are already covered under Klausner Technologies Visual Voicemail patent licenses granted to mobile operators.

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Seeing how past lawsuits have gone, RIM is likely to settle…

Whether we like it or not: China is a huge market. Handset vendors can live off the Japanese market alone – and China is significantly bigger. However, getting in is not easy – the handset tastes are peculiar, and the Chinese market is known for its price sensitivity.

RIM is now rumored to try and break into the market. A Reuters report goes as following:

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HONG KONG, Nov 23 (Reuters) – China Telecom (0728.HK) aims to sell BlackBerry handsets and Palm (PALM.O) smartphones in China by early next year, as it tries to gain share from its two larger mobile telecom rivals, a source familiar with the situation said on Monday.

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“China Telecom hopes to have released BlackBerry handsets by the end of the year or early next year,” said the source, adding that the firm is also in talks with Palm to release Palm smartphones in the same time period.

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As of this writing, no particular handsets have been named. However, given the traditional affinituy of Asian customers to touchscreens (and their price sensitivity), I would bet that we will see some kind of Storm, possibly accompanied by some kind of cheap-ass QWERTY box.

All those of you who haven’t lived under a rock for the last weeks will not be surprised by this – AT&T has just started selling the Bold 9700:

Further information can be had at the URL below:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/ …

RIM’s BlackBerry Pearl was the first attempt at creating a consumer BlackBerry – unlike the Storm, it turned out to become a smash hit. Unfortunately, smash hits also age…which has made the Pearl less than attractive when compared to current devices.

CrackBerry now shared a few shots of the successor, which is said to be called Pearl 9100. One of them is below:

As of now, not much more is known…

All those of you who feel like a decently cheap option for a new low-end BlackBerry should definitely give T-Mobile USA a chance – their latest holiday gift offering offers both Curve 8520 (said to be 300$) and Pearl (150$) boxen.

In both cases, the units come for a fixed price which includes one month of unspecified “service” – the full press release goes as follows:

T-Mobile announces the availability of T-Mobile Complete, a pre-packaged no-annual contract solution that offers the value of a monthly plan and the first pay-in-advance BlackBerry smartphone from a national U.S. carrier. With T-Mobile Complete, customers can choose from four handsets starting at $59.99, which includes first month free. Customers can also choose from a range of unlimited plans starting at $50 per month. T-Mobile Complete is currently available nationwide at Best Buy and at select Walmart locations.

T-Mobile Complete kits are the easiest way to give phones this holiday season. Just buy the kit, wrap it, give it as a gift, and the recipient can activate service from anywhere, anytime – and they get the first month free! One of the four devices available through T-Mobile Complete is the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone, the first pay-in-advance BlackBerry smartphone available from a national carrier. Smartphones will be a hot gift option this holiday season – in fact, T-Mobile expects smartphones to account for 40 percent of its sales in the fourth quarter of 2009.

T-Mobile Complete is just one great holiday gift option from T-Mobile. With a wide array of devices this holiday season – including the broadest lineup of Android smartphones of any carrier in the U.S. – there’s something for every type of customer.

Officially, AT&T retail stores will start to sell the BlackBerry Bold 9700 on the 22nd. However, business customers get better treatment – their units have already been shipped if the preorder was filed early enough.

The Boy Genius was among the first to place his order, and has presented a little unboxing:

Further shots can be had below:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/11/17/att-blackberry-9700-unboxing/

Now that the talk is over (and yours truly is on the way back to his safe internet connection), enjoy the slides below. The original talks were held at the IT Underground 2009 in Warsaw, videos might become available shortly:

Attack vectors on mobile devices

Symbian: code signing methods for mobile

Enjoy!

NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA phones have always been a somewhat weird bunch of boxen: rarely seen outside of Japan, many ground-breaking features have been released initially in these handsets.

According to GizMag, these handsets will soon get another impressive feature – self-healing paint:

… Japan’s major Telco, NTT DoCoMo, has announced it will license Scratch Shield for use on mobile phones as a value-add feature for Japanese customers.

The self-healing paint, currently applied to certain Nissan and Infiniti vehicles worldwide, was developed in collaboration with University of Tokyo and Advanced Softmaterials Inc.

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Even though I wish the boys well, I fear that we will be in a land of peeling handsets once again. Stay tuned…

Don’t ask me why, but RIM so far did not combine QWERTY keyboards and a touchscreen into a single device. As this is a killer combination, everybody would love it – but it is not available…

StreetInsider now quotes Morgan Kaufman as follows:

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Analysts at Kaufman Bros. said that their checks indicate a new form factor and new web browser is under development for Research In Motion’s (Nasdaq: RIMM) BlackBerry smartphone.

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Kaufman said they are picking up strong indications of a new form factor under development that would be a cross between a touchscreen BlackBerry Storm 2 and a physical keyboard BlackBerry. They said, “from our understanding, this new BlackBerry would have a full touchscreen plus a pull-out physical keyboard. It would be similar to others from HTC, Palm, Motorola and others but of course sport a distinctive signature BlackBerry industrial design.”

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From my point of view, there’s not much to add here – the faster the critter drops, the better…

RIM’s original BlackBerry was a top-seller, quickly becoming one of the most-used BlackBerry handsets on the market. Unfortunately, signs of age were showing – which is why the 9700 was released.

BrightHand got their hands on the box, and generally ended up impressed:

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The BlackBerry Bold 9700 will be the RIM’s standard bearer for some time to come. After a disappointing offering with the BlackBerry Storm2, it’s reassuring to see such a solid performer.

It’s smaller, better looking, has a great track pad, and feels more solid than its predecessor. Initially there doesn’t seem to be much that it is missing. Indeed it seems that of all the ‘Berries in the store, this is the one I’d have.

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Storm 2 aside, it looks like RIM still knows what they are doing after all…

The strength of RIM’s mobile devices has always been its high-powered backend servers: the devices were dumb terminals, and the server handled all complex computing. Thus, every update of the back-end is great.

BBLeaks claims the following upcoming changes:

BIS 3.0 (March 2010):
* Improve the Gmail plugin:
o Synchronization deleted messages, read / unread and sent between the box and your own Gmail (so far worked only in the opposite direction)
o The ability to add and remove labels from your device

BIS 3.1 (Soon after):
* Synchronize Google Calendar
* Synchronize your address book from Hotmail account
* Synchronize your address book from Yahoo
* Yahoo mailbox will cause an automatic download of Yahoo messenger on the device

As of now, none of this is confirmed – so take it all with a grain of salt…

Prototypes of RIM’s BlackBerry Storm 2 have hit the road for some time. The folks at Engadget’s now took an unit for a spin, and performed a pretty thorough review.

Unfortunately, the screen technology doesn’t seem to have improved much:

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What’s worse, the Storm2’s implementation requires a surprising amount of effort to actuate, meaning that long messages were a chore to type out — not only do they wear out your fingers, but it gets old hearing the screen’s loud “thunk” each and every time you type a letter, which we find considerably more noticeable than the traditional click of a physical QWERTY keyboard.

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Their final verdict is just as bad:

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For existing Storm owners who’ve been saying “if only this damn thing had WiFi” through clenched teeth for the past six months, the Storm2 makes an elegant, hassle-free replacement. For the rest of the world, though, we totally understand why Verizon has elected to bury the phone’s launch beneath a pile of Google — it’s an underwhelming experience for today’s multimedia-centric, ADHD-afflicted buyer.

If you ask me, RIM should forget the concept of Bold+Touchscreen, and instead go for a completely redesigned GUI. Do that, or give up on touchscreens – but do something soon…