Blackberry vs. iPhone: New Bold touch screen coming in August
Research in Motion Ltd. saw its stock price drop sharply, the lowest since September 2006, after releasing its results for the quarter ended May 28, 2011. The BlackBerry maker has cut its earnings outlook and said it would reducing its headcount, as it has been losing ground to Apple Inc.'s iPhones and devices running on Google Inc.'s Android operating system.
RIM
The new Bold phone has the best of both worlds: the physical keyboard that is a trademark for BlackBerry phones and a touch screen that makes the iPhone popular.
"Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter." said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. "RIM's business is profitable and remains solid overall with growing market share in numerous markets around the world and a strong balance sheet with almost $3 billion in cash. We believe that with the new products scheduled for launch in the next few months and realigning our cost structure, RIM will see strong profit growth in the latter part of fiscal 2012."
RIM released has shipped 500,000 PlayBook tablets since their April release, exceeding the 350,000 units estimated by analysts. However, this pales in comparison the more than 2 million units of Apple's iPad2 sold within a month of its release.
The Canada-based company has confirmed it will release the new touch BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 in late August this year.
The new Bold looks a lot like the previous version, but boasts of a 2.8" touch screen and claims to be the thinnest Blackberry phone yet. It has dimensions of 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, and weighs approximately 130 grams.
The Bold phone has the best of both worlds: the physical keyboard that is a trademark for BlackBerry phones and a touch screen that makes the iPhone popular.
"Reach out and touch your information like never before, swiping, pinching and zooming with fluid Liquid Graphics on a touch screen," RIM said in its Web site. "Or type with ease using the iconic BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard."
Aside from that, the Bold also boasts of power and performance.
The new Blackberry Bold has these specifications:
* 1.2 GHz processor, 786 MB of RAM, * 8 GB of onboard memory with an option to expand (using up to a 32 GB media) card, * VGA (640 X 480) 287 dpi resolution, * 5-megapixel back-facing camera for 720p HD video recording, * dual-band Wi-Fi and support for high speed 4G/HSPA+ wide area wireless networks. * a built-in compass (magnetometer) to support location-based services, and * 9900: Tri-Band HSPA+, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE * 9930: Dual-Band CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A, Dual-Band HSPA+, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE
The new Blackberry Bold will sport near field communication (NCF) technology, which will support new mobile payment options and other features in the future. Through NFC, users will be able to, for example, pair the BlackBerry Bold to an accessory or read information such as a web link from smart tags by simply tapping their BlackBerry Bold to an NFC tag.
The new handset will run on BlackBerry 7, the latest version of RIM's operating system, and will support BlackBerry App World for purchasing and downloading apps. The BlackBerry 7 browser includes a new JIT (just in time) JavaScript compiler to improve the load time speed of web pages. The new browser also includes support for additional HTML5 elements, such as HTML5 Video.
The Bold's Liquid Graphics touch screen, a key new feature powered by BlackBerry 7, offers up to 60 frames-per-second performance with instant UI action/response.
Users will also get the full version of Docs To Go with all "premium" features enabled out-of-the-box so that users can easily work with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the smartphone. Docs To Go also includes a native PDF viewer.
With the excellent features, the new Bold Phones should allow RIM to regain its status as market leader in smartphones. However, this could be short-lived as Apple is reportedly set to release iPhone 5 in September.
According to tech sites, the iPhone 5 will have an improved lock screen, a separate flash unit for the camera, panoramic photo capabilities, 1080p Full HD videos, integration to Twitter, iCloud service, an 8-megapixel camera, improved speech recognition, and a faster processor than the iPhone 4. Apple though has yet to lay its cards on the table: it has not even provided the specifications of the new devise.
With Apple playing poker face, putting your money on the new Blackberry Bold phone should be a better bet... for now.
