We don't know what to call them anymore, BlackBerry spies, leaks, connects, snoops, "finders," or sneakers, but they are out there finding BlackBerry smartphones before they are officially launched,. We don't know if they get them for free or for a fee, but they do get hits for the finders who become the keepers of the new BlackBerry news.
Update 08/08/20 - Reviewers of the BlackBerry Torch liked most of the new features but would like to have seen more screen and power.
Different pics have been posted of the BlackBerry Bold 9800 Slider running BlackBerry OS 6.0 with the WebKit Browser. It does look like a BlackBerry Storm with a "BlackBerry Tour-style" keyboard that slides out the bottom. It is branded as Rogers with an optical trackpad.
There is an AT&T BlackBerry Bold 9800 TMZed on video showing a Sure Press touchscreen virtual keyboard with an AT&T splash screen, suggesting that the BlackBerry Bold 9800 will be available in the U.S. from AT&T.
The video shows the new redesign of the photo viewing app that slides
around with touches and taps. When the keyboard slides out, it
automaticallly disables the touchscreen keyboard. In the WebKit
browsers, there are tabs for saving bookmarks. YouTube videos play fine
with the YouTube app. There is a new BlackBerry podcast app. The
touchscreen is SurePress.
Since the BlackBerry Bold 9800 Slider
is for Rogers and AT&T it should support 850/1900MHz UMTS bands.
Rumors suggest a summer release date with some speculating as soon as June.
Features we know are coming in BlackBerry OS 6.0:
- New graphics for photo views and apps launching.
- New WebKit browser efficient, fast, rich browsing with for mullti-tasked with.tabbed browsing. Multi-touch support, for pinch to zoom while browsing, viewing photos.
- New menu pop-ups Redesigned integrated apps and a new media player itnerface.
- New Home Screen with different views and universal search.
- Unified Social Networking and Feed integration.
Other specs that have been speculated of the BlackBery Bold 9800 Slider are a 5 megapixel camera with LED Flash with video (we've seen the lens,) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, audio jack, 360 x 480 screen, GHz processors, 512 mb of RAM, 4 GB of storage and supprt GSM bands. There is probably room for more data storage on a microSD.