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First 3G BlackBerry Announced
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is featuring an article on Research In Motion's first 3G BlackBerry, due shortly for release in the UK via Vodafone. The big news is that it contains an integrated 3G data modem - meaning UK addicts will be able to connect from the device and their laptop (via USB/BlueTooth) at 3G broadband speeds. No EDGE so the US will have to carry on waiting, but for those in the UK and Europe, short of integrated GPS, is the BlackBerry 8707v finally the first example of mobile device convergence everyone has been waiting for?"
No, that would be the Treo. And we stopped waiting a while ago.
I've never tried a Blackberry myself, but I've heard from someone that Email is the only thing it does right. Is that the general consensus? I'm using my Treo 650 for my (very) occasional mobile email needs, and SnapperMail is working great for me. And as a Palm, I find it a great PDA.
Maan
From looking at the market and hardware available, there's no one device which does anything and everything the "ultimate mobile device" would do. What I do see, is a few devices which merge some features, but miss out others.
For example, this new Blackberry device gives instant email, phone service, and 3G data access, but it's big and bulky and doesn't feature a mobile camera. The Nokia N-Series provides smartphone capability using Series 60, multimedia features, and high spec cameras, but it's small and only has a standard mobile phone keyboard.
The above examples are the way I see the mobile device market going; there will be many devices which offer convergence in many different ways. But, I don't see it possible to create a "one device fits all" type handset, purely because there are so many different market sections and types of people who use them.
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By positioning the 3g phone as a high speed modem, blackberry is doing something very significant: it is saying that the best thing about 3g is not that you can watch movies or do video calling on a phone screen , it's the sheer access to bandwidth wherever and whenever you want.:)
The big news is that it contains an integrated 3G data modem - meaning UK addicts will be able to connect from the device and their laptop (via USB/BlueTooth) at 3G broadband speeds
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And the only thing faster than the connection will be the speed at which the bill rises.
Beep beep.
Where I live (not USA), the thing that is holding back new devices is the insane connectivity costs imposted by the mobile companies. 3g and the trimmings is out unless it is on business expenses. Using an "ordinary" old mobile is expensive enough. Naturally if you impose a greed-crazed charging structure like this, as if megabytes were as rare and precious as diamonds, there will appear to be no demand for all-in-one devices, phones with mp3 players, etc. Someone, somewhere will suss this eventually and if they make a fortune by breaking up the cosy club and bringing all-in-one to the mass market they will thoroughly deserve it.
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EVDO is a 3G standard.
An EVDO Blackberry has been out since late 2005.
Therefore, this is not the first 3G Blackberry.
Unless they want to make the distinction that the voice traffic is being handled by a 3G-type connection as well?
Not true...
Ever hear of the HTC Universal (XDA Exec, Qtek 9000, T-Mobile MDA Pro, I-Mate Jasjar, etc)?
VGA screen, 520mhz processor, 3G (UTMS/HSDPA), WiFi, Bluetooth, dual cameras for video-conferencing, Windows Mobile 5.0, 128MB of RAM (I believe), and a SD slot.
It also has a swivel screen that opens up into a full QWERTY keyboard. The screen flips around and covers the keyboard for portrait/phone usage (although there is no number pad, which I guess could be a little annoying for some people).
If I had to pick a super device that does everything... I'd choose this one. If I had the money ($700+ on eBay), I'd pick myself up one... but I'd like some hands-on testing first, and sadly as they're not sold in the US, I'm never going to get to try before I buy.
I think I will prefer getting the same features plus memorystick support for my MP3s in the pretty cool looking Sony Ericsson M600: http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ve r=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=php1_10385&zone=pp& lm=pp1&pid=10385
The concept of convergence depends wholly on your personal needs, and based upon the posts so far, seem to have a lot to do with the BlackBerry vs the devices running Windows Mobile and Symbian that tend to have a lot more add-ons that people add into their personal definition of convergence.
RIM have built up a critical mass of customers because lots of companies and organisations really don't want devices with removable media or integrated cameras because it would break every security rule they have. They want end-to-end encyrption of internal e-mails that are necessarily deflected outside the LAN to mobile devices without having to install and support additional layers on their server and clients to try and do that job. They want the ability to lock then remotely wipe a device when its left down the side of a chair. They don't want the support calls after meddling users play with the device configurations while sat waiting for the gate to be called at the airport. Most certainly don't want to pay for data so users can download mp3s and amusing avis on their company device.
For the majority of mainstream business users, the idea of a 3G BlackBerry is incredible. Users moaning that BlackBerry e-mails only supports plain text (ps - it is a pain!) might be forgetting that with 7x the bandwidth, moving "bulky" HTML around is no longer an issue and so will likely be supported sometime soon. Attachments, the annoyance of all mobile devices (how do you download to review that huge presentation?), suddenly become a lot less scary. Users will be able to ride off the back of their 3G BlackBerry via their laptop to connect securely to the company LAN via the built-in BlackBerry Mobile Data Service and will remove VPN and security issues to access company intranet sites.
For those who do miss add-ons like digital cameras, the BlackBerry could connect (when the centrally managed IT policy allows) to a BlueTooth-compatible digital camera (a camera that will always be able to have a much better feature set then the rather inadequate ones currently found squeezed into phones and PDAs)? And with the broadband connection from the device, the pictures will be easier to move around.
For them, they bought the 7100 to finally get one device that could do a proper job of handling voice and e-mail/PIM. Now, a device with the specifications of the 8707v means they can have one device that expands the e-mail and PIM abilities, allows for faster secure browsing of the company intranet sites, and makes the laptops broadband-fast without the need for the separate 3G data card - the data card you couldn't give most of the executives because their 0.5oz supermodel-slim laptops didn't come with a PCMCIA slot!!
The point of convergence for this set of people - with this device, for now - is 95% there. Once a device with GPS comes out that will allow these users to route from A->B without the need for a in-car or portable sat nav... wow!
Convergence for the more technical users of mobile devices often does mean the need for removable media, the ability to properly support multimedia, lots of menus full of settings to play with, hackable firmware (alright, an "open" architecture), the choice of ways of being to able to fully access, for example, IMAP accounts - its what we are used to and what we need. I think, in short, it means having access to as many of the things on the handheld device as we're used to being able to use on our desktops... well, aside from monitor size and 7 speaker set up!
The point of convergence for most of us will always be another handful of device features away.
With OS 4.02 or higher, the 7250 supports EVDO. You just have to make sure before you load the newer OS that you contact your provider and make sure your account is set up to allow EVDO otherwise you'll get "Data Connection Refused" when trying to transmit data. Check out blackberryforums.com to get more info.
You're missing the point with the lack of cameras on the Blackberry. I'm a senior blackberry admin for a fortune 100 company. Every time one of these new PDA convergence things come out the company that makes them sends us a load of them to test out. So far they've all fallen to the venerable blackberry. The point of the blackberry isn't to be all things for all people, it's to provide damn good corporate PIM and email and do it quickly. The Treo service is a POS that won't amount to very much unless they fix some critical bugs with their software. (I should not have to sign into GPRS every few hours to recieve push email) and the windows mobile devices are absolute kludges to use. Interesting note: The Treo 650 corporate edition doesn't have a camera.
The blackberry will continue to succeed because they know their audience. Joe blow on the street who wants a cool phone/pda isn't blackberries audience. The CIO who wants enterprise level email managment and support with minimum support hassles is the blackberries audience. They're also the audience the Treo650, 700 and all the windows mobile devices are trying to get because they're the ones who sign the big checques.
If RIM wanted to own the consumer PDA market they'd just release a blackberry with a built in 4GB microdrive and dump some cash on a good mp3 player app. If they teamed it with their amazing data delivery capabilities and cell provider weight they could be the only ones to take a chunk out of apples marketshare.
From someone who's done evaluations on literally every single blackberry competitor on the market, they have 2 years of hard development before they catch where RIM is today. The hardware itself is only 10% of the puzzle. That being said, the 8700c is an amazing piece of equipment. It's a quad band worldphone with quite possibly the best wireless radio of any device period. (You'll 3 bars with an 8700 in places where a Treo650 would have nothing) It has an awsome speakerphone and excellent sound quality. It's also got it in a slightly narrower package than the old 7290's and 6280's. Everything screams well-thought-out. It's almost like trying to compete with apple if apple had MS's marketshare but didn't lose their focus on use friendlyness.
The blackberry is not a consumer device. It is a business device. Hence, no mp3 player, no camera, no third party software installed by default save for java to run the apps.
RIM is just starting to think about the consumer market with its 7100 series. It's the first "phone-like" blackberry.
Blackberries have always been targetted at business users. That means it has to work well and it has to work all the time. A blackberry does both. It handles email like a champ, makes calls without a problem, and gives you access to the web when you need it in a decent mobile browser. Now, according to the article there's an integrated 3G modem, meaning business types will be able to use 3G networks on their laptops, just by syncing via bluetooth to their blackberry. This makes it an even BETTER business device.
If you only consider what it was meant to do, Blackberry is best of breed.