CTIA Wireless 2007, the wireless industries largest convention of the year, just ened yesterday. Although Verizon unveiled several new mobile devices soon coming out on their network, a BlackBerry with a digital camera, didn’t make the list.
If T-Mobile or AT&T gets a second CameraBerry before Verizon gets their first, I am switching to whomever gets the 8300.
Can you hear me now?
Dude I know exactly how you feel. I have been month to month on Verizon with a 7130e since January and I am going to go with whoever offers the first full keyboard berry with a camera.
I second that!
I found this post claiming that it will be out soon.
http://blog.rvpc.com/index.php/verizon-wireless-to-release-cyclone-around-may-14-2007/
Robb,
You may as well plan on switching carriers…by now all of the rumors point to the same set of data: that the 83xx series will be out on AT&T in April/May, with the 88xx “Cyclone” on Verizon sometime in May or June.
Of course, the problem is that the 88xx Cyclone for Verizon won’t have the camera, but will be a clone of the 8800 for Cingular. There aren’t even any credible rumors out there of any impending CameraBerry for VZW.
So at this point it seems as if there is no possibility of any CameraBerry hitting VZW before the 8300 series comes out on AT&T.
Ever since Mike Lazaridis boasted about how easy it is to port the BlackBerry over to CDMA I am much less willing to wait. I am a new device every year or so kind of guy and I can no longer justify paying top dollar for a Verizon BlackBerry that is a year or so older the the current GSM models.
I guess not having the device you want is as good a reason as any to switch carriers.
Robb: I’m no engineer, but I don’t really see why it’s so difficult to release CDMA versions of phones very closely to the GSM releases. It’s basically the same phone with a different radio inside. I know that must be an oversimplification, but I’d love to hear from a true engineer on this issue.
Plus, we know that VZW can get manufacturers to release CDMA versions in the US, sometimes even before the GSM versions hit. Last year the new Treos, the new Moto Q and KRZR, all hit in CDMA before GSM.
So I don’t really know where the bottleneck is.
I used to think that Verizon would for sure surpass Cingular in numbers of customers, as had been the trend, but now I’m not so sure. The iPhone will do amazing numbers for Cingular, and will create a halo effect that will gain even more customers for them beyond those just signing up for the iPhone.
I can only agree with my frustration about VZW. If they want to be the top player than they need to get on the ball. How can such a large company be so slow about releasing new handsets. I also understand that VZW has a very large business market. This would seem to point that they would want to offer the best of goods to there customers, those old blackberries have to need replacing by now!!!!
GET IT TOGETHER VERIZON!
If Verizon were smart about it, they’d realize that their best way to counter the inevitable iPhone onslaught from AT&T would be to have a strong stable of multimedia BlackBerry’s. They sure aren’t going to compete with Windows Mobile devices…Windows Mobile is a POS.