This week’s rich vein of new mobile phone handsets from the likes of Nokia and Samsung continues today with the unveiling of Research In Motion’s (RIM’s) long-awaited BlackBerry Tour smartphone.
RIM would like you to take the Tour... literally. Image: Verizon/RIM
Available to CDMA customers in North America through Verizon Wireless and Sprint, the new Tour handset is described by Ontario-based RIM as offering “state-of-the-art communications and multimedia capabilities” along with outstanding mobile performance and “consummate styling.”
While the style credentials of Research In Motion devices has never been in question, what can prospective buyers expect from the Tour now that it’s finally joined the award-winning BlackBerry product line?
Functioning on high-speed 3G EV-DO Rev. A networks across North America, along with 3G UMTS/HSPA (2100MHz) and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM abroad, the versatile Tour also comes equipped with on-board GPS and a host of advanced multimedia capabilities.
Complete with a full QWERTY keyboard and sculpted keys for precise interaction, the Tour has a 2.44-inch display screen (480 x 360 at 245 ppi), which RIM lauds as delivering “the highest resolution available on a BlackBerry smartphone.”
Other features and functions include a 3.2 mega pixel camera (with flash, variable zoom, image stabilisation, autofocus and video recording), a full HTML Web browser, Bluetooth, 256MBs of Flash memory, and a microSD/SDHC memory card slot for storage expansion up to 16GBs.
And, when Research In Motion describes a handset as “fully featured” it certainly doesn’t offer up a half-baked product that’s all mouth and no trousers.
More pointedly, the Tour also comes with BlackBerry Media Sync, DataViz Documents to Go, easy access to Facebook, MySpace and Flickr, a wealth of messaging solutions, support for BlackBerry App World, BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Server for advanced security and IT features.
Factor in five hours of talk time and 14 days of standby time thanks to its removable and rechargeable 1400mAhr battery and the BlackBerry Tour (9630) should turn plenty of heads when its arrives in the U.S. later this summer.
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