The Dubai Expat Diaries

The age-old (or maybe not so old) dilemma for corporate tech junkies may finally have a resolution! Dubai and the UAE, like most other urban centres in the world today are filled with Blackberry obsessed corporate types, who’d swear by the little devices…and would rather take the infernal things to dinner and bed than spend some quality time with their spouse! But the dilemma that the Apple iPhone posed was this… everyone loved it, but email junkies just wouldn’d give up their Blackberrys…no matter how delicious the iPhone interface and user experience was. The result? 2 Phones!!! You’ll find plenty of people carrying two phones around…or using the Blackberry during the week…and a standby iPhone for the Weekend and to impress friends and family (especially the early adopters who shelled out double the prices to get hacked Apple iPhones in Dubai and the UAE).

Tech Nirvana may finally be at hand. The RIM Blackberry Storm (aka Blackberry Touch) is set to cause a storm the world over…and may just be the iPhone killer that corporate nerds can rant about. Not only does the Blackberry Storm offer a superior full touch screen experience like the Apple iPhone does, it also included tactile response! In plain talk…you can actually feel the screen depress under finger pressure. 

Watch the video comparison between the Apple iPhone and the RIM Blackberry Storm below to see how the two devices compare:

A little more video footage of the RIM Blackberry Storm:

The Apple iPhone still hasn’t been officially launched here in DUbai and the UAE, but of course this hasn’t deterred iPhone junkies…everyone in Dubai’s carrying around jailbreak and hacked versions of the revolutionary Apple phone. The Blackberry Storm is also yet to make its debut in Dubai and the UAE but it won’t be long before it does… what would be interesting to see is if the BlackBerry Storm makes it to the country officially before the iPhone – they’d certainly have an edge over Apple in terms of adoption, especially in the coporate market, where the simplicity & connectedness of the Blackberry, combined with the superior user experience of the iPhone would be unbeatable.

Watch this space for developments as they happen!

Scope: BlackBerry Storm, The RIM Blackberry Storm in Dubai, RIM Blackberry Storm UAE, Buying the Blackberry Storm in Dubai / UAE / Middle East, BlackBerry Storm Shops and Prices Dubai.

Background Information on the Blackberry Storm

The BlackBerry Storm, or BlackBerry Thunder, is a smartphone developed by Verizon Wireless Research In Motion (RIM). It is part of the 9500 series of phones. It is RIM’s first touchscreen device and first device without a physical keyboard and will feature a touchscreen which reacts physically like a button via SurePress, a Research In Motion patented technology of providing haptic feedback. It will be available through Vodafone in the UK, Ireland and Australia,  Verizon Wireless in the United States, Telus and Bell in Canada.

The Blackberry Storm is a world-phone, featuring CDMA with EV-DO Rev. A data, UMTS with HSDPA, and quad-band GSM with EDGE data access speed. However, the BlackBerry Storm only has European, Oceania and Asia UMTS and HSDPA frequency bands. Therefore if the BlackBerry Storm is used in GSM wireless carriers in North America, the BlackBerry Storm will only be able to access wireless internet at EDGE data speed. This is because GSM carriers in North America, namely AT&T, T-Mobile, Rogers and Fido do not operate on the same frequency bands for 3G as the rest of the world. If BlackBerry Storm is used in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, or Brazil, HSDPA wireless data speed can be achieve, provided that the GSM network supports it. The phone will use the primary network technology of its intended carrier (Verizon) when travelling domestically in the US, and rely upon the GSM/UMTS/HSDPA networks of Vodafone mainly when traveling abroad.

It is intended to be a direct competitor to iPhone by Apple Inc., the T-Mobile G1 by HTC, and the HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch HD. The shape and dimensions are very close to that of the iPhone, but thicker by 7 millimeters and much heavier, weighing 20 grams (0.71 oz) more. Source: Wikipedia

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