Bold will be in Rogers stores next week
Helen Morris
Sun
The latest BlackBerry from Research In Motion is set to hit the Canadian market today. But the new Bold may not attract the same scores of eager buyers who lined up around the block to snap up Apple’s iPhone 3G in July.
“There’s a huge difference in the sense that there’s not a crowd of geeks who follow the BlackBerry,” said Eamon Hoey, who looks at the telecommunications industry for management consultant Hoey Associates. “The BB does not have the following in the marketplace — the religious following, I might add — that Apple has that tends to buoy up the market.”
Rogers Wireless will be offering packages for the BlackBerry Bold online today and in their stores by the beginning of next week.
Odette Coleman at Rogers Wireless said that it is the company’s standard practice not to reveal pricing before a launch, but Jim Balsillie, the co-chief executive of Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion, told Reuters in May the handset will cost between $300 and $400.
But as with the iPhone, prices can drop.
“The pricing will change. … They’ll work their way down to something that is going to be more reasonable,” said Marc Perrella, vice-president of the technology group at IDC Canada. “The timing is pretty good; they’re in the back-to-school time period. And it’s a lead up to the Christmas shopping season.”
Research In Motion said on their website the Bold will let users “do more — do it faster.”
“It takes advantage of Rogers‘ investment in its high-speed 3G network, the HSDPA,” said Perrella. “The higher speed allows for a richer customer experience.”
Perrella thinks the many features in a single device will appeal to business and consumers.
“They’re being true to their established executive in the enterprise … but [also] the younger, hipper worker because that memory and capability also translates into handling social networking or YouTube Web-based streaming,” said Perrella. “You can now manipulate and edit items from Microsoft. … It is a dual-mode phone, so it has the 3G plus the Wi-Fi capability. … It also has GPS.”
Following a 12-hour test drive of the new multimedia device, Citi Investment Research analyst Jim Suva told clients in a note that the BlackBerry Bold is a “strong product,” but that the device is not revolutionary.
Suva wrote that the browser on the Bold is a “big improvement” on the older Curve and Pearl BlackBerrys. RIM says “colour and clarity come to life,” with the new device and Suva — testing the device by watching the movie Talladega Nights — said the display is noticeably better.
But Hoey remains skeptical.
“In general, the larger corporations who are the big users of these devices … tend not to buy the latest and greatest,” said Hoey. “Because they are price-sensitive, typically they buy the almost-discontinued models or near-to-be discontinued models. They tend to go on low-price BB models.”
Suva did report some 3G signal dropping on streets with highrise buildings, and on the 34th floor of his office.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008