The new BlackBerry flammable phone has been put through one of the more important ceremonies of acceptance into the smartphone world: a teardown. Very typical actually, and also seemed to be a ‘MUST’ for all the new smartphones that is about to engrave the world. The CrackBerry crew have disassembled a Torch to see what makes it burn and smoke, and produced some glamor shots of naked hardware for us to gawp and stare at in the process. As you can see by the exploded shot of the phone above, most internals are either integrated or soldered down, but this undressing does afford us an opportunity to take a look at the biggest novelty in this new BlackBerry, namely its slider mechanism. It’s impressively thin, rated for 150,000+ cycles. Head over and watch the video below to see it for yourself.

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What you see above is a black fruit device with a ‘9300’ code, with quad-band GSM and HSDPA 850/1900/2100 radio. Designed in a fat candybar body with 802.11n WiFi, GPS, it’s got a shady 256MB of RAM. Not amazing for some, but do-able for the mass market. There’s a 2 megapixel camera at the back, microSD expansion (2GB in the box), and 2.4-inch display throwing 320 x 240 pixels.

There’s no BlackBerry 6 running in it though, but that can be easily upgraded if RIM would want to. This is actually up in Canadian Roger’s website for a price of $79.99 Canadian price. We shall see what RIM would say about this, as somehow this Curve slipped passed the announcement for the Torch 9800 and the BlackBerry 6.

[Rogers via Engadget]

In a ‘fiery’ interview by The Wall Street Journal, RIM’s co-CEO Mike Lazaridis commented on the recent multiple bans on their BlackBerry smartphones. Lazaridis said that “this is about the Internet,” and that “everything on the Internet is encrypted. This not a BlackBerry-only issue,” before adding that if “they can’t deal with the Internet, they should shut it off.” But that’s not all. Lazaridis further went on to saying that “we’re going to continue to work with them to make sure they understand the reality of the Internet,” noting that “a lot of these people don’t have Ph.Ds, and they don’t have a degree in computer science.” Despite those statements, however, Lazaridis seems confident that the situation will get sorted out, saying that it “will get resolved if there is a chance for rational discussion.”

Hmm… sounds to me like he’s not very happy and doesn’t wish to collaborate with them. Actually, that is very true. If the Middle East powerhouse wants to ban the BlackBerry, they might as well ban all the smartphones like Apple’s iPhone and HTC’s Android phones too. Who would in his sane mind allow a breach in their customers’ content privacy?

SOURCE via Wall Street Journal

The folks in UAE might have until October to scout for new smartphones while still enjoying their BBM until then. But the girl next door might not have a better luck then them. Saudi Arabia doesn’t seem to have a good patient when it comes to privacy issue. According to U.S. news agency SPA, the Communications and Information Technology Commission for the country has ordered all BlackBerry services in the country to be halted by this Friday. The reason apparently has to do with “not meet[ing] regulatory requirements,” which echoes what UAE and India have said before. Looks like the new Torch 9800 won’t be going to the Middle East so soon.

[via Yahoo! News]

If you carry a BlackBerry and plans to go to Dubai soon, you might need to consider getting a new phone, or any other arrangement. The important thing is, you need to leave behind your BlackBerry. This is because the UAE has confirmed that their BlackBerry ban also applies to you, you, and you foreigners. Everyone! Blasphemy! I’ve gotta get busy and dig back my Nokia 3310 brick phone if I’m going there in October, as the ban starts at 12^th of October.

The ban applies to BlackBerry data services, so you’ll still be able to make calls from your phone. But since so much business is conducted online—and on BlackBerry—it’s going to be a huge blow to a country that depends so much on, and so actively courts, international commerce. Not very investor-friendly, unless you give them some free iPhones while they travel in UAE.

There’s still plenty of time for either RIM or the UAE telecommunications regulator to blink. Let’s hope someone does, because this current policy ends with everybody losing, except for Steve and Co.

SOURCE Washington Post

RIM has announced that their latest BlackBerry Bold, the Torch (aka 9800) will be launched in August. The Torch is a slide-smartphone with a hidden QWERTY keyboard on a portrait slide. There’s a 5-Megapixel camera with flash (most probably LED) that’ll improve your ‘shooting-on-the-go’ experience. Other major features include Wi-Fi 802.11n support, 4GB of onboard storage, paired with a 4GB microSD card in the package. There’s a 512MB each of ROM and RAM. The Torch has a quadband 3G radio, making it a global smartphone (duh). Read more…

After some sneaks and snacks, RIM finally removes the curtain for their latest smartphone OS, called the ‘BlackBerry 6’. Besides the obvious name change from “BlackBerry OS” to the very simple “BlackBerry,” the operating system also features numerous updates, most notably new global search functionality through internal indexing, social network aggregation (duh?), WiFi-powered media sync with your desktop music collection, and an all-new (and desperately needed) WebKit-based browser with support for HTML5.

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The United Arab Emirates’ Telco went for a review on RIM’s BlackBerry and notice that they weren’t able to monitor how people were using their BlackBerrys. Therefore, to counter the said revelations, their solutions were rather simple; a ban on few of the BlackBerry’s features. Not very shocking to me, but still this is very awkward. I really can’t comprehend what’s running through their mind. Yes it is okay when you ban singers like Rihanna and her sexy legs into your country due to your culture, but banning the few main features of a smartphone like Internet access, emails, and instant messaging just doesn’t cut it. The advancement of smartphones at your fingertips and yet being ignored. That’s just sad. Might as well ban the whole brand and stick to your Nokia 3310.

Saudi Arabia is similarly peeved with the BBM service, which it intends to shut down later this month. And just in case you were wondering why all this drama is taking place, the BBC  cites a Saudi Telecom board member as admitting it’s designed to pressure RIM into releasing users’ communication data “when needed.” *shrug*

[via BBC]

It was quite awhile ago when we reported that RIM is getting into the tablet business. But now, this is surely something to recon that the rumor is very true. RIM has just acquired blackpad.com and it would not have been a joke or ‘for fun’ for them to simply register a certain URL that is so closely named with terms that would relate to tablets right? Well, RIM and AT&T (US Carrier) is holding a press conference this coming Tuesday, so we should expect to see some interesting ‘revealing’ of a certain product by then.

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This new handheld here surely looks like something from RIM. It’s the upcoming BlackBerry Bold 9780, and this baby is loaded with the upcoming OS 6.0, besides the typical QWERTY keyboard of the Bold. Though it looks nearly identical to the current Bold 9700, therefore it might be just be a Bold 9700 with a hacked ROM or theme. Rumor has it that it’s gonna be fully packed with 512MB of flash memory too.

[via Crackberry]