PhoneTalk

The WES 2010 conference was held this week in Orlando, Florida. This is a BlackBerry conference where attendees get tips on apps, how to use BlackBerry more efficiently, and even learn about new initiatives and see new products available for BlackBerry users. Before the conference even got started, RIM announced 3 new BlackBerry cell phones: BlackBerry 9100, 9105, and BlackBerry Bold for Sprint. I'm sure many consumers were waiting for that news. First, the BlackBerry Pearl candy bar-style phone definitely needed an update and it's no surprise that the new Pearl models trade-in the trackball for the trackpad. That's a feature we're starting to see in all new BlackBerry cell phones hitting the market. However, the 14-numeric keypad found on the Pearl 3G 9105 is interesting. I think that helps extend the company's cell phones to a larger market especially since more and more messaging cell phones have added QWERTY keyboards, making it easier for people to text longer messages. This means we see fewer and fewer candy bar-style 14-key numeric phones available. While the BlackBerry 9650 seems to be a lot like the BlackBerry Bold. The Bold is definitely one of the more popular smartphones RIM offers and is also one of the more feature-rich. The Bold has only been available for GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. It's nice to see this popular cell phone coming to Sprint, a CDMA carrier.

At the show, RIM offered a sneak peak of OS 6.0 as evidence by the video below (Thanks PhoneDog). It's hard to tell all that will be different in the new Operating System, but it does look like the new OS is keeping some of the features customers have come to rely on in the BlackBerry OS, but with a more fluid integration and easy to access multitasking. From the video, it looks like it's designed for a touchscreen cell phone, which begs the question will we see another touchscreen model from BlackBerry when the new OS is released next quarter (OS availability is according to the PhoneDog post). That said, I can see how the new OS would still work well with non-touch screen BlackBerry smartphones. Either way, the new OS 6.0 is a good thing and timely especially as we see more and more smartphones coming to market that offer slicker user interfaces and full QWERTY keyboards.

Topics: Somethin' To Talk About Sprint BlackBerry Camera Smart phones Business Use