RIM’s Blackberry has seen a steady decline in sales for the past 2 years, despite their best attempts at regaining market share. Despite still having the largest user base in the US and Canada (largely thanks to businesses and professionals preferring their phones out of a sense of tradition), it is very obvious that they will lose that edge soon if they don’t start doing something.
Blackberry has missed on the touch revolution and more importantly, the apps revolution, which is currently the main reason why people choose one OS and phone over others. The only thing they have going for them is the great OS and QWERTY keyboards, both of which are perfect for business people and intensive work.
RIM is currently actively looking for ways to improve their situation, and designing better phones seems to be one of their top priorities. The Blackberry Torch was one of the first “new-generation” smartphones, and it looks and works pretty great. Now, RIM has decided to target another, “distinct but sizable set of consumers in the US”, in their own words, with the newly announced Blackberry Style 9670.
The Style 9670 is supposed to be a relatively cheap smartphone for people who constantly use messaging and also want to have a good looking device. It runs on the new Blackberry 6 OS, which has support for all the new Web technologies, and has 2 screens – a 2 inch QVGA one on the outside and a bigger 2.7 inch, still QVGA, on the inside. They are not touchscreens, but on a flip phone, touch isn’t very practical, and at this resolution, there isn’t much space to have big finger-friendly buttons anyway.
The phone comes equipped with a 5 megapixels camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, and a microSD card slot that supports up to 32 GB cards (one 8GB card is included). The price will be $99.99 with a contract in the US, which makes it the more economical choice for BlackBerry fans despite the competitive BlackBerry Torch offers to be had. If you like flip phones, you should definitely like the new Style 9670.
