After so much speculation and waiting, the highly anticipated second generation BlackBerry Strom 2 9520 gets released with the UK markets getting the first taste. The handset can now be pre-ordered online from the Vodafone UK site with shipments getting to you starting on the 26th of October.
It’s free on a 2-year pay monthly plan from £35 with 600 minutes per month, unlimited internet services from Blackberry and Vodafone Mobile Internet as well as unlimited text. Vodafone claims to be the first UK carrier to offer this second generation touchscreen smartphone from RIM, though other UK mobile network carriers like Verizon are expected to follow suit.
Improved Handset
It looks like RIM is taking its handsets to where they should have been when the first generation handsets were first released. The new Storm II now has WiFi 802.11 b/g which Blackberry is proclaiming as an enhancement to its handset, as if the feature was just invented yesterday.
It sports an ordinary looking QVGA 3.25-inch capacitive touchscreen with its newly patented SurePress technology that provides a tactile feedback every time you press on the screen and allows multiple touch responses when doing simultaneous tasks. A light touch on the screen is all that is needed, allowing for faster typing on its virtual QWERTY keyboard.
Typical Smartphone hardware Features
This is a basic quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on the 2G network and a tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA on the 3G network. It sports an average 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera that gets variable digital zoom and geo tagging. It has a 256 MB internal flash memory and a generous 2Gb of RAM that can be expanded with its microSD slot support for up to 32 Gb when the card is available.
The handset features the usual sensors to lend a semblance of intelligence to the handset. It has a face detection proximity sensor that disables the touchscreen feature when the handset is held close to the face in a call. It has an accelerometer for automatic portrait or landscape viewing with the corresponding handset orientation.
There’s stereo FM, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP for wireless stereo earphones and a 3,5mm headphone jack in case you prefer to use you high fidelity stereo headsets. Its ample 1400 mAh battery allows 6 hours continuous talk time on 3G network and 280 hours of standby time on a single charge.
Advance Software Features
The Blackberry Storm 2 9520 runs on the RIM proprietary OS 5.0 and carries a number of improved phone apps that include a capable Media player that supports most of the audio, video and picture file formats. It has the Blackberry Desktop manager for both your PC and Macs, plus the Blackberry Music Sync which allows effortless synchronization of iTunes and Windows Media Player content between your desktop and the handset.
Its built-in GPS receiver supports location-based application like Google maps. This enables software driven geo tagging for images taken on its camera. It comes bundled with apps that allow you to access the BlackBerry App World online containing an extensive and growing catalog of application specifically developed for the Blackberry smartphones.
These apps encompass various functionalities like games, entertainment, instant messaging, weather updates, news advisories, productivity tools and social networking, to mention the more popular ones.
It should be worth noting that applications developed from the first generation Storm are compatible with the Blackberry Storm 2. The phonebook and text messaging functions are pretty mush typical of any PDA-type smartphones. The Blackberry has noise suppression that allows calls to come through loud and clear amidst a noisy ambient surrounding.
Blackberry Storm 2 9520 Links:
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