That salacious onyx number up there? Per CrackBerry, it’s a rendering of RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry codenamed London. Found lurking in a leaked Waterloo slidedeck, the svelte render now sports a more curvaceous and onyx exterior — a departure from the angular metallic P’9981-esque dummy-unit first spied back in November. Those tweaks validate another rumor, which foretold the redo, as-well as the killing of its Milan and Colt siblings. Looks like RIM might be putting all of its eggs into this redesigned London-basket, which per this leaked roadmap could be yours come Q3. [...]

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RIM has launched the Porsche Design P’9981 smartphone from BlackBerry, a BlackBerry smartphone that has, unsurprisingly, been designed by Porsche. It’s not the first time that the middle-class car-manufacturer beloved by the upwardly mobile has turned its hand to mobile phone design, but it is the first time its futuristic style and sharp racing angles have made their way to a BlackBerry. The handset comes running BlackBerry OS 7 featuring an exclusive Porsche Design UI and bespoke augmented reality app. Given that designers and car manufacturers really know what they’re talking [...]

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Well, that was quick. Mere hours after holding a press conference stating that it didn’t know when BlackBerry users would have their BBM, internet, and email working again, services have begun to come back online. Apparently email is up across the globe, as is BBM. Web browsing, however, continues to be “temporarily” unavailable to those on EMEIA networks in Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa and Latin America. There is of course a considerable backlog of messages to get through, but the good news is that all the BlackBerry bits and bytes are flowing freely once again. Hit [...]

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The darling of the teenage BlackBerry-toting masses, BlackBerry Messenger, is coming to Android – and we have what we’re told are the first screenshots of BBM for Android for your delectation. Until now, there hasn’t been much meat to the rumour that RIM is bringing out Messenger apps for Android and iOS, but these photos apparently come by way of a RIM employee who tells us that the app is in the final stages of testing, with BBM for Android launching by 2012. The screenshots show the BBM icon on an Android menu screen and a contact profile page from the beta version of the app.The [...]

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Overview, design and feel This time last year, BlackBerry fans were salivating at the imminent release of the Torch 9800. For the first time, those who’d been demanding a touchscreen smartphone from RIM (without SurePress, which we’ll just gloss over) were getting their way with the safety net of a keyboard below that slid out. On top of that was 3G, a 5MP camera and the brand spanking new OS. What wasn’t to love? And 12 months on we feel like we’re experiencing a bit of deja-vu, because the Torch 9810 is now hitting shelves. And to look at it, not much has changed. The [...]

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Overview and design It’s taken a ridiculously long time to come, but this is it. This is the one. After the clickable screen of the BlackBerry Storm 2 and the touchscreen-with-slide-out-keyboard shenanigans of the original BlackBerry Torch, RIM has finally released a proper touchscreen smartphone. No ands or buts – the BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen, and that’s it. Granted, the iPhone managed a similar-ish feat in 2007, but RIM’s insistence in holding on to the designs that made it big in the first place have held it back from this moment. This [...]

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Better late than never, ey? RIM finally got with the program and rolled out their official version 3.0 upgrade to BlackBerry App World. The updated application portal had already been available to Beta Zone members early last month and was slated for an August 22nd debut, but apparently missed that release window. We’ve already seen the cosmetic improvements the Waterloo-based company’s brought to the app hub, with a redesigned home screen, refreshed icons, MyWorld downloads folder and the ability to share apps via your choice of social messaging service. The service still lacks the [...]

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Want to get your BBM on in style without spending a fortune on RIM’s latest trio? Say hello to the new 11mm (0.43 inch) thin BlackBerry Curve, now official in 3 variants — the dual-mode GSM / CDMA 9370, the GSM / UMTS 9360 and the CDMA-only 9350. These long rumored handsets feature an 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, a tiny 2.44-inch HVGA+ (480×360 pixel) display, a five megapixel EDoF camera (with LED flash and VGA video recording), Bluetooth, WiFi b/g/n with UMA, GPS / aGPS and NFC. While there’s no sign of that new-fangled touch screen technology, you’ll find BlackBerry 7 under [...]

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An 18-year-old woman has been charged by police, accused of using the BlackBerry Messenger service to encourage others to participate in riots. The unnamed teenager, from Clacton in Essex, is alleged to have used the group messaging service to encourage her friends to go rioting in the town, as violence spread across the UK this week. She has now been formally charged, under the Serious Crime Act, of intentionally encouraging or assisting in the commission of an offence, and will appear in court on September 1st. The police action comes following widespread condemnation of how social media and [...]

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The BlackBerry Bold 9900 comes as something of a shock. You see, for years, BlackBerry has, in a sense, been catching up. That’s not a dig at its parent company – it’s practically royalty in push email and corporate handset circles. But it has been rare for RIM to lead the way. Cameras, internet browsing, HTML emails – all were included on RIM’s phones years after they’d become standard fare on other handsets. For recent examples of decent phones that didn’t really push the envelope all that far, just take a look at the Bold 9780 and 9700. But the Bold 9000 finally [...]

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