We’d heard awhile back that Research In Motion was planning a slimmer, more cellphone-like version of the BlackBerry (many of which double as clunky cellphones, of course) codenamed Charm. We’d almost completely forgotten about it (hey, there are a TON of gadgets to keep on top of these days), when some photos materialized over the weekend of a new BlackBerry which does indeed look a heck of a lot like a cellphone. There are hardly any details available except that it is supposed to have a high-quality screen and NOT have a regular QWERTY mini-keyboard like all the other BlackBerrys. Whether it’ll be part of the BlackBerry line up or be the first of some new line of handsets we don’t know.
[Via Engadget]
Good to see this kinfd of innovation on the mobile front. I am not sure why RIM decided to enter the smarphone space. One of the key reasons for users to choose the BlackBerry is it’s distictive design with the thumb keyboard. WIth a smartphone you have to be a “T9 wizard”; something that many of the business users are defenitly not !
On the ‘devices with build in keyboard’ side, RIM will also face stiff competition with the new Motorola MPx and the Qtek 9090 / MDA III for example.
