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A new BlackBerry codenamed Stealth, reportedly headed to Cingular Wireless sometime this fall, now has a name, the 8100 series, and an image. These pictures of the 8100 leaked to a couple of Web sites. They show, among other things, from the branding on the front that T-Mobile is another operator candidate for the new BlackBerry.

The 8100 is built in the mold of Research In Motion's (RIM) more phone rather than PDA-like 7100 series. As with those RIM handhelds, the 8100 uses a keypad/keyboard hybrid rather than a QWERTY thumb-keyboard. Predictive SureType technology helps you accurately input text. So when you press a key, the 8100 knows which of the two supported letters you mean to use.

Revolutionarily for a RIM device, the 8100 is the first BlackBerry with a camera and a microSD slot for adding additional storage. The smartphone also includes media applications for video, music, and photos.


from mobilityToday

Since the device is probably slated for Cingular and T-Mobile, its a GSM/GPRS and 2.5G EDGE handset, but not - unfortunately - it seems, a 3G UTMS, smartphone. Wi-Fi, a promised addition to future BlackBerrys as well, doesn't appear to be in the cards for the 8100 either. For T-Mobile, in particular, Wi-Fi would be a no brainier – and attractive - because of its heavy investment in hot spots and the carrier’s expected roll out of dual-mode Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) service later this year or early next. UMA enables GSM carriers to seamlessly handoff calls and data connections between cellular and Wi-Fi networks using voice over IP technology.

Nonetheless, the 8100 is the first of what RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie promised in June: Many new BlackBerrys that greatly expands beyond RIM's traditional corporate-centric range of features. He said these would include Wi-Fi, MP3 players, video, memory expansion, and image capture. Balsillie added GPS would become an attribute of virtually all future BlackBerry handhelds.


from mobilityToday

He emphasized, however, that security would remain the company's top priority.

RIM has been relatively slow to include new multimedia features, for example, because of security concerns from enterprises, who would prefer to maintain as much control over employee handhelds and wireless capabilities as possible. Yet as consumers outside the corporate environment become a more important demographic for RIM, it has become essential that the mob-e-mail leader - who earns 70 percent of revenue from its devices - starts to integrate elements that have long been taken for granted in platforms and devices from other vendors into its own.

RIM expects to launch about 20 more BlackBerrys this year alone. While that may be true, RIM often releases variations on a single BlackBerry for different markets and carriers - using a letter (c, v, r, t etc.) as an appendage to differentiate them - so the number may not really be that high: the BlackBerry 7130c for Cingular Sound confusing or the BlackBerry 7130v for Vodafone, for example. There are rumors that RIM may soon simply its system of releasing handhelds by nixing the letter system altogether.