Comments on: Bad News for Sprint and Verizon subscribers waiting for the BlackBerry 8100

By: Verizon BlackBerry 8130: It’s About Time | RIMarkable | The official, unofficial BlackBerry Weblog

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:53:43 +0000

[...] Today is the day that we have been waiting for since we first heard that CDMA BlackBerry 8100 development lagged behind the GSM version. [...]

By: Robb Dunewood

Robb Dunewood — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 17:28:24 +0000

Jan,

The normal pattern for CDMA BlackBerry devices on Sprint and Verizon to come out after their GPRS counterparts is 8 months to a year later. With the Pearl doing as well as it is, RIM may try to speed this up a bit, however, even if they do, we are probably looking well into next year before there is a CDMA BlackBerry Pearl.

By: Jan Brzeski

Jan Brzeski — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 17:24:15 +0000

I really like the Blackberry Pearl device but I prefer the sprint data access speed to T-mobile’s slower network. I have heard that T-mobile may be upgrading their network, but I don’t know when and whether that will help me if I am using today’s Pearl device.

Any guidance on whether it is better to switch to T-mobile in order to get the Pearl today, or wait for Sprint to come out with their own 8100? FYI, Sprint’s internal customer service web area shows the BB 8100 as “coming soon” but I could not get any details.

By: thought

thought — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:53:43 +0000

Robb: you must be out today; I’m surprised you haven’t posted yet on the details of the new BB 8100 “Pearl”…

By: thought

thought — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:43:46 +0000

Here’s what roc a fella had to say about the issue of BB releases:
“It always seems there is 8-12 month delay from the device coming out on GSM to CDMA”

link

If the CDMA 8100 device were coming out soon roc would know. The fact that roc didn’t mention any exception in his statement means a lot. When the CDMA 8100 is going to be released, roc will know about that. But for now I wouldn’t hold my breath.

By: thought

thought — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:23:59 +0000

It does seem logical that the release of the CDMA 8100 is at least a few months behind the release of the GSM version…that certainly has been the trend. I don’t know if RIM has the capacity to develop both devices simultaneously.

As to Russell’s speculation re the camera engineer: with all due respect to Russell, I think this is a sheer guess in the dark. I really respect Russell and his blog, and certainly his speculation sometimes has been correct in the past. However, this camera engineer could have been hired to work on future BB models with camera and to develop better camera phones for the future; now that the 8100 is being released, I would presume that RIM will continue to develop their line of devices with camera.

Also, I’m no engineer, but it seems to me that the same camera used in the GSM model will be used in the CDMA model, as it works with all other manufacturers. Certainly, developing a device for CDMA is entirely different than for GSM…different chipsets, software, etc. However, I wouldn’t think that the camera would be different. To me that would be like saying that the trackball would be different, or the outer casing would be different. The camera is pretty much independent of the system the phone uses.