So sorry, Bell, it looks like Telus is already preparing to rain on your parade. Just as the BlackBerry Tour 9630 will launch on multiple carriers here in the US, so too will it see several homes up north in Canada. Sure it’s a little blurry and it’s greased up like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, but there’s no mistaking that branding — this little guy is Telus-bound. A 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, HVGA display and a knockout cocktail of CDMA/EV-DO/GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA make for quite the stunner. Excited, Telus crowd? Hit the jump for two more shots of greasy goodness.
We’re seriously going out on a limb here, but we’ve received word the BlackBerry 9630, the device we all know and love, will make its debut into the world as the BlackBerry Tour. Not even going to comment on the name, we’ll leave that up to you. Just know this is viciously unconfirmed, but hey, it sounds like something RIM would think is cool. Plus, wasn’t there rumblings about U2? Just sayin’…
From May 5 to 7 in Orlando Florida, RIM will will be hosting Wireless Enterprise Symposium or WES. While BGR will be there on the floor for the entire convention bringing you the latest BlackBerry news as it happens, we thought we’d give you all a little bit of a taste of what we know/believe is to come.
We’ve been playing with it non-stop all weekend. We’ve tastelessly shown it off with a dash of hood on video. But the review is now finally ready. We decided to split this into two parts, one now and one right before launch. That way no one will see things that aren’t final and vice-versa. It will also be a nice way to keep track of what’s changed/been modified. We’ll also do something new here… if you have any questions, drop them in the comments and we’ll edit the post and answer them in the Q&A section of the review!
Man, so many people wrote in about this that we just had to do something real quick. This is a very brief walkthrough of the device and a couple applications. We provide no warranties to the quality, musical integrity, emotional attachments nor uncontrollable outbursts you might have while viewing it.
One of our ninjas was nice enough to drop by the BGR offices with a gift. And ooooh baby, it’s a nice gift! We’re not going to beat around the bush — we’ll put this little bugger exactly where it belongs — a review will be coming. But for now, here’s some quick impressions followed by a couple more money shots:
All you Verizon Wireless folks with dirty, battered and broken BlackBerry Curves may have cause for celebration if this latest rumor pans out. Word on The Street is the BlackBerry 9630 Niagara will debut on Verizon Wireless in May. This would place the 9630 launch a year after the Curve 8330 launched on Big Red and not a moment too soon for the Curve’s early adopters. Perhaps not so coincidentally, WES just so happens to be in May so don’t be surprised if the 9630 makes its first official appearance there. Then again, The Street cites “analysts” as the source of this rumor, which means it was basically just an assumption corresponding with WES to begin with. No word on pricing or any other details as yet unfortunately — patience, young grasshopper.
Well there you have it folks — live photos of the BlackBerry 9630 Niagara have surfaced on the internet and it looks exactly as it did when we first scooped it way back when in May of last year. Believed to be a World Edition device that is jam packed with GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSPA and CDMA 1xRTT/EV-DO Rev. A radios, the Niagara is also purported to feature GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera. Sadly, it appears that Wi-Fi has been dropped from the menu, quite possibly at the request of Verizon. Of course, all of this goodness can’t go around town naked, so RIM slapped it into a pretty little Frankenstein of a body that blends the amazing keypad of the Bold, the display and the menu buttons of the Curve 8900 and the silhouette of the Storm. Pretty, no?
So… we’ve just got word from a really trusted source, dropping bombs all around on the BlackBerry “Niagara”. First off, the model number we’re told is the BlackBerry 9630, not 8930 or 9030, or anything like that. Second, the phone will definitely be a Verizon World Edition with support for CDMA 1x, EV-DO Rev. A, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and UMTS, though we’d bet the UMTS band is going to be 2100MHz only. The last of the big news won’t surprise any Verizon-haters, but this bad beast is not going to have Wi-Fi. Oh man, they never learn, do they? To recap everything for you slow pokes:
