Research In Motion and T-Mobile USA Inc. today launched the first BlackBerry device to feature a phone form factor, the BlackBerry 7100t.
“We think this is going to attract a whole new audience to BlackBerry,” said Mark Guibert, vice president of corporate marketing at RIM.
The phone features RIM’s new SureType technology that combines a traditional phone keypad with a BlackBerry-style Qwerty keypad. SureType software recognizes 35,000 common words, common letter patterns and information from user contact lists, to ensure data is entered correctly into the phone.
“Right out of the gate, it has a huge advantage over traditional mobile phones,” said Guibert.
The phone also includes a speaker phone, Bluetooth technology, dedicated send and end keys, and an improved user interface. This device will also support instant messaging applications from AOL, ICQ and Yahoo!.
The device supports both the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service, which now supports HTML browsing.
RIM expects the handset to be attractive to the “individual buyer market,” which the company usually refers to as the “prosumer” market, said Guibert. Prosumers are likely to use one mobile phone for both business and personal matters.
T-Mobile will offer the phone for $200, and service plans, to include 1,000 anytime voice minutes and unlimited data usage, will cost $60 per month.
The device is debuting today, in conjunction with the opening of T-Mobile’s 1,000th retail store and will become commercially available in early October.
The news follows yesterday’s announcement that Internet service provider EarthLink would offer the 7750 BlackBerry device, which includes phone capabilities, to its customers, and that Nokia Corp.’s Series-80 Symbian OS-based devices would feature BlackBerry services through RIM’s BlackBerry Connect licensing program.
Shares of RIM were trading up at $84.14 per share late Tuesday.
