Waiting for the next BlackBerry handset has always been fun, but the new 9800 Slider is such an interesting form factor that we have just got to try out the new smart phone form factor and see if the new Slider will be accepted by fans. According to reports, an upcoming RIM event might see the official announcement of the BlackBerry 9800 Slider.
As one would have expected, the RIM smart phone will be loaded with a physical keyboard –a prime component of almost any BlackBerry brand mobile device. While we know that the button layout will be easy to get used to and the keys will be responsive, it is hard to tell if the new slide out form will be comfortable to grip and hold.
According the rumored spec sheet for the 9800 Slider, the device will come with a 3.2 inch TFT display, and an optical trackpad for navigational controls. No details have been given on the internal memory of the handset, but it is said that the Slider will support microSD cards of up to 16GB.
The handset itself will support a wide variety of signals and bands. It is a 3G and 2G capable smart phone with GPRS, EDGE and WiFi support. And of course, the device will have a mini USB port, GPS and Bluetooth as well.
Aside from the new form factor, the Blackberry 9800 Slider will also be featuring the new BlackBerry OS 6 (or BlackBerry 6 for others) which is the latest operating system version for RIM. The BB OS 6 takes focus on media playback as RIM’s previous OS versions only had minimal media playback capabilities.
The OS 6’s layout , control scheme and file format compatibility has been improved greatly and for the first time, BlackBerry devices might be seen as excellent multimedia handsets and not just keyboard smart phones.
