Touchscreen BlackBerry

Right now it is called the "Thunder". Unfortunatly RIM has delayed the release of the Bold to get this unit out sooner because of the release of the iphone3g.

bjamin82 said:

I don't know if anyone has seen this yet... but here you go... Looks pretty neat, except Exclusive to Verizon...

http://www.blackberrynews.com/2008/...berry-thunder-now-the-blackberry-9500-os-470/

http://www.intomobile.com/2008/05/13/rims-iphone-fighting-touchscreen-blackberry-9500-thunder.html

http://www.slashphone.com/rumor-blackberry-thunder-got-first-live-photo-leaked-14887

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BubblePuppy said:

Right now it is called the "Thunder".

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I believe it's actually called the 9500.

It looks like it will be a cool phone but I will be upgrading to the curve from my 8703e instead.

Then reason I have a blackberry is because of email (I think Blackberry is the best solution for email on a phone IMO). By not having a hard button key board it will not do me any good.

Michael D'Angelo;1691987 said:

It looks like it will be a cool phone but I will be upgrading to the curve from my 8703e instead.

Then reason I have a blackberry is because of email (I think Blackberry is the best solution for email on a phone IMO). By not having a hard button key board it will not do me any good.

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I would wait for the Bold unless you don't have ATT. Even though I just got the Curve a couple of months ago I'm going to spring for the Bold when it comes out. The tiny keyboard keys of the Curve drive me a bit crazy. The Bold keys will be bigger. I use the delete and back space keys alot.

BubblePuppy said:

I would wait for the Bold unless you don't have ATT. Even though I just got the Curve a couple of months ago I'm going to spring for the Bold when it comes out. The tiny keyboard keys of the Curve drive me a bit crazy. The Bold keys will be bigger. I use the delete and back space keys alot.

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Verizon. I was a little worried about the keys being a little smaller than my 8703e but I was playing around with a curve last week and I think it will be ok for me.

spartanstew said:

Why can't you use the virtual keyboard?

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If Verizon has it before I get the curve (my upgrade is less than 2 months from now) I will check it out first but touch screens are not as good as hard buttons IMO.

I've only had my Pearl since January, so don't need to upgrade yet, but would consider upgrading to the 9500 (and giving the Pearl to my wife) if it's as nice as it sounds. I don't mind touchscreen keyboards for email and I rarely text.

spartanstew said:

I've only had my Pearl since January, so don't need to upgrade yet, but would consider upgrading to the 9500 (and giving the Pearl to my wife) if it's as nice as it sounds. I don't mind touchscreen keyboards for email and I rarely text.

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How much do you email from a phone? Just wondering. I probably do about 20 emails a day on my blackberry. I think the touch screen will drive me nuts.

Oh now that is way cool..keyboard in both portrait and landscape.

spartanstew said:

Why can't you use the virtual keyboard?

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Michael D'Angelo;1692012 said:

How much do you email from a phone? Just wondering. I probably do about 20 emails a day on my blackberry. I think the touch screen will drive me nuts.

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Work and personal combined, at least 50 per day. Most of them are only 2 or 3 sentences though.

spartanstew said:

Work and personal combined, at least 50 per day. Most of them are only 2 or 3 sentences though.

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ok...like I said I will check it out if available in time (BTW does anyone know when it will be available?). I just don't want to but the amount of money (also and idea how much?) out it is going to cost and hate it within a week.

Michael D'Angelo;1692012 said:

How much do you email from a phone? Just wondering. I probably do about 20 emails a day on my blackberry. I think the touch screen will drive me nuts.

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I think the tiny keys of the Curve might do the same. I know I get a bit frustrated at the extra letters or wrong letter that I have to go back and correct. My fingernails aren't long enough for nail typing.:lol:

BubblePuppy said:

I think the tiny keys of the Curve might do the same. I know I get a bit frustrated at the extra letters or wrong letter that I have to go back and correct. My fingernails aren't long enough for nail typing.:lol:

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I agree with BP. That's one of the reasons I went with the Pearl. Since it has 2 letters per key, the keys are actually larger than other BB's (and it only took me about 2 days to get used to the way it autotypes, which turned out to be very cool and much quicker than my old BB world edition). I think the touchscreen keys will be big also, but I guess we'll have to wait and find out for sure.

I couldn't find any info on a release date.

spartanstew said:

I couldn't find any info on a release date.

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Who knows where he got it from, but the second comment in the link from the blackberrynews story about says:

If this is due out in September, why has the production line not changed to this yet. the bold production line was going for months before it was announced… this isnt gonna happen in september

Saw that, but since he says both "due out in September" and "this isn't gonna happen in september" and I couldn't find any other conformation on crackberry or any of the other blackberry sites I know, I took that as nobody knows yet.

I do have ATT and personally will not switch to Verizon for the 9500. The Bold does seem to have a better keyboard than the Curve which is what I have now. I think for the person who really does use their BlackBerry for a corporate, away from computer email solution, the Bold would be a better choice.

Michael D'Angelo;1692012 said:

How much do you email from a phone? Just wondering. I probably do about 20 emails a day on my blackberry. I think the touch screen will drive me nuts.

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I happen to agree... I do at least 20 or so emails per day and I believe the touchscreen would drive me crazy. My wife has the iPhone and just typing a text message makes me want to throw the phone down... the gain of the touch screen is the other applications you would use... i.e. browsing web pages.

I hate T-Mobile...their phones blow.