BlackBerry Colt to be the first BBX superphone, specs leaked alongside an image

Last week, RIM officially announced BBX, its next-gen operating system that will marry the QNX-based OS currently found on the PlayBook with the BlackBerry OS that's powering all of the company's smartphones at the moment. RIM gave no indication of when BBX will be inside shipping devices, but back in August we heard mumblings about the first smartphone running the new platform coming in the first quarter of 2012.

Its name, or codename, is Colt. BlackBerry Colt. This will apparently be the high-end flagship that RIM has needed for a long while. Here's a render of what the Colt might look like:

The phone that ends up being released may not be identical to what you see in the image above, but it will be close. As for specs, we have a whole bunch of them neatly leaked for your convenience.

A single-core 1.2 GHz processor (as seen in the Bold 9900) was used in the first testing phase, but a dual-core CPU is currently inside prototypes, so that may be the chip the Colt ends up shipping with. There will also be a touchscreen (at least 4-inch) with a resolution higher than 900 pixels and two cameras, one at the front and one at the back. The Colt will be thinner than the Bold 9900 and 9930, but will have a similar unibody outer stainless steel frame, no physical buttons, a similar battery to that found in the PlayBook, and new transitions which should make the UI feel fluid.

RIM confirms PlayBook OS 2.0 delayed until February, still no BBM in sight

Well, we hope you weren't expecting to have PlayBook 2.0 up and running on your BlackBerry tablet any time soon, cause it's been officially delayed till at least February. Word has come straight from the mouth (well, keyboard) of David Smith, senior vice president for the PlayBook project. In a blog post Smith announced that RIM would be holding back on the release to ensure many of the new features, including native email and enterprise app deployment, work as advertised. The OS update will be getting a decently long beta test, with it rolling out to some in the Early Adopter Program "shortly." Sadly, it seems that some features have fallen by the wayside with the focus on polish - namely, BBM. Since the messaging service relies on a one-device per-PIN model, getting it on the tablet has proved troublesome. For now users will have to rely on BlackBerry Bridge and their RIM handsets to get their BBM fix. Considering the company's track record, we wouldn't be shocked if the OS update slips even further into the future - remember an email client was promised within 60 days of launch... that was back in April.

Porsche-Designed BlackBerry Is a Sleek Slab of Steel

In the immortal words of Ashford and Simpson, the Porsche-designed Blackberry is h-h-h-h-hot

What would you get if you took a Motorola RAZR (the original), a BlackBerry and a mid-1980s Bang and Olufsen stereo, tossed them in a blender and poured the results to set in a shallow cake tin? You'd get the Porsche Design P'9981 Smartphone you see above.

Specs-wise, the phone doesn't do anything special. It simply checks the boxes required of a modern mobile telephone: 1.2GHz processor, 720p video camera, 8GB storage, 5MP stills camera and a microSD card slot for expansion. It's relatively small 2.8-inch, 640x480 287dpi screen can be explained away by the backlit hardware QWERTY keyboard.

But design-wise, it's a rather hot-looking slab of glass and stainless steel (no silvered plastic here), and even has a leather-coved back panel. It probably won't help BlackBerry pull out of its terrible death spiral, but it will at least make e-mail addicted businessmen look a little less dorky.

Price and availability tba.

Porsche Design P'9981 Smartphone [BlackBerry]

Blackberry Colt Specs Unveiled

The Blackberry Colt has been quite a lot of talk on the internet lately and now its specs have been leaked. Powered by RIM's BBX platform, the smartphone features a 4-inch touchscreen display, a 1.2GHz single core processor, a unibody stainless steel bezel, a front-facing camera and a rear-facing camera. It has a similar form factor to the BlackBerry Bold. The Blackberry Colt will be launched in mid-2012. [Ubergizmo]

Blackberry Porsche P'9881 announced

A week ago we reported that thanks to an invitation, it appears that RIM and Porsche had plans to hold an event to unveil a new product. Unless Porsche was planning on releasing a new Porsche Blackberry sports car, it left little to the imagination at what sort of announcement that both companies were going to make, and now it is official. Both RIM and Porsche have announced the new Blackberry Porsche P'9981.

The device isn't really groundbreaking in terms of technology, and it appears that this is more of a luxury phone. The P'9981 will sport a 1GHz processor under the hood, 8GB of internal storage with a microSD card slot to accommodate an additional 32GB, a 5MP camera capable of recording 720p HD videos, a QWERTY keyboard, NFC capabilities and will run on Blackberry OS 7.

The phone has also been redesigned to give it a more Porsche feel, replacing the fonts on the QWERTY keyboard and operating system with the ones used by Porsche, along with a new set of redesigned icons. If you're a fan of Porsche cars and Blackberry devices, the good news is that the P'9981 is expected to be made available by the end of the year for $2,000 and will be sold in limited quantities.

Additional Blackberry Colt specs revealed

Rendering of the Blackberry Colt

There has been a lot of talk surrounding RIM's new platform – BBX. The new platform is to RIM what Windows Phone is to Nokia, a second chance at reclaiming the market that both companies used to dominate, and along with their new platform, there has been talks about a BBX device called the Blackberry Colt, and thanks to n4bb, more details surrounding the device have emerged, although we'll probably take that information with a grain of salt until RIM actually announces something.

The Blackberry Colt when first rumored didn't really say much about the device, other than the fact that it would run on RIM's BBX (it was known as QNX back then) platform, and would sport a 1.2GHz single core processor (which disappointed many, but then again it's just a rumor) and would feature a 4.x" touch screen display.

New information uncovered by n4bb is now telling us that the Blackberry Colt would be thinner than the Blackberry Bold 9900 and 9930, and would feature the same unibody stainless steel bezel as the Bold 9900 and 9930. It would also be a complete touch screen device, feature the same battery as the Blackberry PlayBook tablet and would sport front and back cameras. This still isn't a lot to go on, but at least a slightly clearer picture is being painted for us, assuming this information is accurate. The Blackberry Colt, if the rumors are to be believed, is expected to see a release mid-2012.

The Blackberry P9981 by Porsche Design officially unveiled

At a special event held in Dubai, Blackberry with cooperation with Porsche Design unveiled the Blackberry Porsche Design P9981. It's essentially a Bold Touch 9900, but with special treatment from the folks at Porsche Design.

As you can notice, although it's based on the Blackberry Bold Touch 9900 it has gone through a major design overhaul. The whole phone is made of stainless steel, while the back tickles your hands with the special leather it's wrapped in.

Although it's based on the BlackBerry Bold 9900, it sports an underclocked 1GHz QC8655 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. At the back we find a 5MP snapper, capable of shooting 720p HD videos.

Naturally, the P9981 runs BlackBerry OS 7, but has gone through special Porsche Design treatment and as a result features special fonts and customized icons.

Like it? Then expect it to hit Porsche Design stores by the end of the year for the colossal $2,000.

Source | Via

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 luxury smartphone announced by RIM

Research in Motion and Porsche have officially unveiled the BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981, a new luxury smartphone that was first seen a few months ago.

The Porsche Design P'9981 runs BlackBerry OS 7 with an "exclusive Porsche Design UI", and is 11.3mm thin. It's build from a forged stainless steel frame, and has a "sculpted QWERTY keyboard", in addition to a hand-wrapped leather back cover.

Other features include a 2.8 inch VGA touchscreen display, HSDPA, NFC, Wi-Fi, GPS, Wikitude World Browser augmented reality app, 5MP rear camera with 720p video recording, 768MB of RAM, 1.2GHz single-core processor, 8GB of internal memory, and "exclusive PINs that help easily identify another P'9981 smartphone user."

The BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 will be available in Porsche Design stores around the world sometime later this year. There's no word on the smartphone's price yet.

It isn't the first time Porsche ventures into the mobile phone world - the company has also worked with Sagem to make that Porsche Design P'9522 candybar back in 2008.

BlackBerry Bold 9790 sees a change?

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 from Research In Motion (RIM) has yet to be announced officially, but one of the more recent images leaked showed off a change to its external design, where the flat button panel has been removed in favor of individually raised buttons. Said image that showed the modification proved to be blurry in vein with most of the other mysteriously leaked images that we've seen so far regardless of the device, so hopefully when an announcement on the new 9790 is made, things will get clearer – literally.

Interestingly enough, the image that you see above shows off the new button construction in a decent way, where you can even make out Arabic characters on it. Perhaps this has something to do with the Porsche Design's 9890 debut that is happening in Dubai on the 27th. Do you think this will be a Middle East exclusive?

BlackBerry Bod 9900 Shows Up In White Skin, Coming Soon?

But what is surprising is the fact the the BlackBerry 9900 was wearing an elegant shade of white, bringing us to suspect that a BlackBerry Bold 9900 white model is being readied for imminent availability.

Now, we have learned that only the external colors have changed which means all the under-hood mettle will remain the same, and of course, you will find it running the BlackBerry 7 OS under the hood.

Regardless, the specs sheet remains same : a 1.2GHz processor with 768MB of RAM, an unusually large 2.8" capacitive touch screen display joined by a backlit physical keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, support for HD video recording and built-in NFC sensor.

Other interesting features include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, onboard GPS, dedicated camera button, a 3.5 mm audio jack, 8GB of onboard storage, support for up to 32GB of expandable storage and much more.

As a refresher, Research in Motion released a bunch of BlackBerry OS 7 phones (the BlackBerry 9900 is one of that breed!) in an effort to keep up with the competition but its hardware is still relatively less powerful than other competitors. However, it's greatest strength lies in the BIS and security and very obviously, the BlackBerry Messenger aka BBM.

There is no word from RIM on whether the device will officially be available in white color besides the standard natural black variant we've been used to seeing now. Anyway, the report sure does give users some liberty to pick from their choice of colors, if it were true.

Click here to know more.

AT&T's Blackberry Bold 9900 to be launched “soon”

While T-Mobile USA is selling the BlackBerry Bold 9900 since August, AT&T has yet to announce an official launch date for the new Bold.

However, we now know that the 9900 is "coming soon" to AT&T - or at least that's what one of the carrier's Twitter accounts suggests here.

Most likely, AT&T will launch the Bold 9900 sometime next month, possibly for a bit more than $200 on contract (T-Mobile is offering the handset for $299).

UK: 16 GB BlackBerry PlayBook sees price cut to �249

The BlackBerry PlayBook may be running an entirely new, not-BlackBerry operating system, but that doesn't mean that RIM's first tablet is selling well. Or at least not as well as RIM would have liked it to. It's clear that the PlayBook, at this moment, is more of a niche device than a competitor for Apple's iPad.

In the UK, this interestingly may turn out to be to the advantage of those of you who'd like to purchase a PlayBook, but haven't done so yet. Over there, RIM is doing what every manufacturer thinks of doing when a product isn't selling well: slash the price.

It has to be said that the BlackBerry PlayBook launched in the UK with pricing identical to the iPad, which probably wasn't the best decision RIM ever made. Anyway, they've now rectified that.

The Carphone Warehouse now sells the 16 GB Wi-Fi-only PlayBook for just £249, which is amazingly £150 less than the launch price. If you'd like 32 GB of built-in storage, you'll have to pay £329, and £409 for the 64 GB of storage.

BlackBerry outage could cost RIM $100 million

Research In Motion's recent BlackBerry outage was the worst in the company's history, leaving BlackBerry users in the Middle East, Europe, parts of South America, Canada, Africa and the United States without service for a total of three days. This major outage could cost the Canadian vendor more than $100 million, Financial Post reported on Friday. The costs include refunds RIM may have to issue carriers for monthly fees it collects for each BlackBerry user. “Given a large portion of global traffic looks potentially affected we believe that a 5% impact to service fee revenue is plausible though likely worse case,” JPMorgan Chase analyst Rod Hall said. Read on for more.

Scotia Capital analyst Gus Papageorgiou estimated that lost revenues could be in the ballpark of $117.7 million, or $0.22 per share, but that RIM should have the crisis under control by the weekend. The costs however, do not include the possibility of shaken faith from RIM's top enterprise users, who rely on BlackBerry products and services for day-to-day operations. RIM co-chief Mike Lazaridis issued a public apology on Thursday in which co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said RIM was “working around the clock to fix this,” and the company stated a few hours later that service had been fully restored.

White BlackBerry Curve 9360 coming to Orange UK

Already available in the UK since the end of September in its original black version, the Blackberry Curve 9360 will be released there in white, too.

Orange UK is currently listing the white Curve 9360 as coming soon, saying it will offer it for free on pay monthly plans (but that's not a surprise).

The Curve 9360 runs BlackBerry 7 OS, and features a 2.44 inch display with 480 x 360 pixels, optical trackpad, full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, 5MP rear camera with LED flash, VGA front-facing camera, and an 800MHz processor.

RIM: BlackBerry services restored globally

After being down for the past few days, it looks like RIM has finally repaired its BlackBerry services. The company announced in a conference call earlier this morning that all BlackBerry services have been restored globally. RIM will now be closely monitoring and placing safeguards on its networks and servers to make sure that such events never occur again. RIM is also considering how it will be reimbursing carriers and users for the disruptions this week. No word on what or how BlackBerry users will be compensated, but we should expect to find out more pretty soon.

How's your BlackBerry phone? Are you still having trouble with BlackBerry services?