The FINANCIAL — Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) on April 6 launched its highly anticipated touch-screen BlackBerry smartphone in Malaysia. The BlackBerry Storm smartphone features the world’s first “clickable” touch-screen and delivers the full power of the BlackBerry platform.
“We are excited to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone to consumers and business customers in Malaysia,” said Gregory Wade, Regional Vice President, Asia Pacific at Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry Storm provides the unique combination of a full-featured smartphone with a large vibrant screen and a truly tactile touch interface. It is a great choice for people seeking a powerful, intuitive and fun device for their mobile communications and entertainment needs.”
"Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry platform with SurePress – a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface. Distinguished with the GSMA’s Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough award at Mobile World Congress 2009, the innovative SurePress touch-screen responds like a physical keyboard by actually depressing ever so slightly when pressed and it supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation," BlackBerry declares.
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone boasts exceptional performance, a stunning display, 3G (HSPA) network support, desktop-style web pages and advanced multimedia capabilities including a 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording, a powerful media player and an expandable memory card slot. In addition, the BlackBerry Storm includes a first class phone, easy access to popular IM and social networking services, built-in GPS and the industry's leading email and messaging capabilities. Its built-in accelerometer allows the touch-screen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset and the fast HSPA connectivity allows users to enjoy a full HTML, high-performance browser that works in either portrait or landscape orientation.
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone is also a multimedia powerhouse with a built-in media player that can play movies smoothly in full-screen mode, display pictures and slideshows and manage an entire music collection (including the ability to create playlists directly on the handset). The BlackBerry Storm smartphone also supports video streaming and can be synchronised with iTunes for music content or wirelessly connected (via Bluetooth) to a home stereo using the BlackBerry Music Gateway.
The 3.2 megapixel camera comes with autofocus, image stabilisation and a powerful flash that provides continuous lighting when recording videos. The brilliant high resolution 3.25-inch display (480×360-pixels at 184 ppi) brings images to life with stunning clarity.
For easy access to popular IM and social networking services, the BlackBerry Storm comes with purpose-built applications for Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, and Flickr. The built-in GPS supports location-based applications and services, as well as geotagging photos. The BlackBerry Storm has 1GB of onboard memory storage and a microSD/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage per card.
Availability
The BlackBerry Storm is expected to be available from Celcom and Maxis from end April. Customers can check pricing information and make pre-orders with each carrier.
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