October 4th, 2007
New iPhone wannabes: LG Voyager and Blackberry 9k
Have you seen the new crop of iPhone wannabes?
First up is the LG Electronics Voyager which Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer Mike Lanman says “We think it’ll be the best phone … this year. It will kill the iPhone.”
The Voyager, exclusively offered by Verizon Wireless, has a large external touch screen that also slides open sideways for a full QWERTY keypad. This gives users a choice on how they access the phone’s features, Verizon Wireless said.
The keyboard option is one advantage the Voyager could have over the iPhone’s touch-screen-only design, in addition to Verizon Wireless’ fast 3G data network
that the Voyager will use to access the mobile Internet.
Verizon Wireless hasn’t said when Voyager will be available for sale, but it is expected to be in stores before Thanksgiving.
The other one is the BlackBerry 9000 which is rumored to be RIM’s first all touch-screen device.
It most certainly will have a 3G radio and we’re not talking about the European bands. (The actual 3G bands are not yet clear, but we can only assume North American 3G is a go.) Second, this isn’t your momma’s 3G, this is going to be HSDPA. Forget the Wi-Fi scam, this is real speed with simultaneous voice and data! That isn’t the best part, though…we’ve been told it will rock a 600MHz processor… RIM is actively looking at integrating a Backup/Restore function to facilitate transferring your entire backup to an on board memory card.
The announcement date of the mythical Blackberry 9xxx is anyone’s guess, but Boy Genius thinks that it’s not going to arrive until 2008. Stay tuned for details on Russell Shaw’s Blackberry Beat blog.
I’ve got to admit that the Voyager’s slide out keyboard is a piece of genius and don’t get me started about missing the Verizon network… What do you think of the new touchscreen-based handys? Is Apple just going to slay them with iPhone 2.0?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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