Just a few days ago RIM’s Co-CEO/Chairman announced that many Blackberry features will be added to models coming out “by the end of the year” with WiFi support, image capture (camera), and MP3 playback capabilities on the short list. After settling the lawsuit earlier this year, RIMs subscriber numbers have been growing steadily, and although they recently announced the 8700 line I’m sure that at least one new product line will be coming out in Q3/Q4 2006 as per their announcement.
My current phone situation is pretty messed up, but I’m seriously considering an 8700c from Cingular. Although some friends of mine prefer the Treo’s form-factor and UI, I have to say that I’m a sucker for how the Blackberry looks. One of the things that seals the deal for me and the Blackberry is how much you can customize the interface (super hot theme pic!) and since I’m a UI guy that’s a huge plus. I’m not sure if you can thoroughly change the entire look and feel of the Treo’s Palm interface, but there is a nice theme-builder IDE for the Blackberry which I’ve been drooling over. A third competitor in the space is the new Nokia E61 — Om just got one and this morning he was trying to convince me to buy that instead of the Blackberry, so it’s definitely a tough choice. Since I despise Windows CE, the Motorola Q is out of the picture for me, which is tough because it’s a pretty nice device as well.
