Whether you love it or hate it (I almost sense another argument between me and Dan brewing, just from saying that), the Apple iPhone 3G really is making a big change happen in the world of mobile phones.
In other words, everyone’s whacking out mobile phones with touchscreens on.
And now, that statement includes RIM, as there will very soon be a touchscreen Blackberry on the market. And here it is, in all its touchy-feely glory, courtesy of Crackberry.com (images from there, too).
Called the Blackberry Thunder, it looks all set to be at least as sexy as the iPhone it’s aiming to beat. Combining a massive touchscreen with a sleek body is nothing new (the Sony Ericsson P800 beat both the iPhone and this new Blackberry to it, yeaaaaaaaaaaaars ago), but here it’s done exceedingly well, and the mobile phone that we end up with is really rather gorgeous.
‘Course, with touchscreen mobile phones, it’s all about the screen, and how much it enhances the experience. The iPhone 3G practically begs you to muck about with it, thanks to that OS-X interface. With the Blackberry Thunder, though (although we’ve only seen the one shot with its screen powered up), it seems to be geared towards giving you the best messaging experience you’ll ever get from a touchscreen phone.
Oh, come on, what did you expect from a Blackberry??
Soooooo, as you can see, you get both a landscape and a portrait keyboard, with the portrait one following the layout of Blackberry’s SureType system (seen on mobile phones like the Blackberry 8110 GPS). So, whether you prefer a full QWERTY keyboard, or the SureType system that Blackberry mobile phones pioneer. On top of that, you also get a brand new innovation, not found on ANY other mobile phones…
You get haptic feedback, but before you all shout, “But you get that on loads of phones,” I will point out that… not like this, you don’t.
If you’ve ever used a mobile phone that’s got haptic feedback, you’ll know that it gives you tactile feedback, by, basically, going ‘bzzz‘ when you touch the screen. The Blackberry Thunder doesn’t just buzz. It buzzes at the precise point you pressed the screen, but in a very definite way, giving the feeling of you pressing on a button. Add in the fact that the screen moves ever so slightly when you press on it, and the end result is said to be a screen that feels absolutely no different to typing on a hardware keypad.
No other mobile phones can claim that.
As well as that, it’s rumoured to have a glass touchscreen, with multi-touch, and the WebKit browser (which is utterly brilliant), and you really do have a serious contender for the iPhone’s throne, here!
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