We’re still no closer to finding out whether this is the next iteration of the Bold, Storm or some other BlackBerry line, but the unofficially coined BlackBerry Slider continues to pique our interest. Here in the third round of spy shots , we’re seeing the elusive RIM-branded device from a few new angles, namely a round of side shots and a side-by-side with Curve 8900. You’ll notice that the new guys is a bit thicker and longer, and you’ll also see a complete lack of labeling beside the camera. There’s a fair chance that hitting that Source link will simply lead to increased frustration and stress in your life, but c’mon, anything to keep you from finishing up those 2009 taxes is worth a look.

We’re still no closer to finding out whether this is the next iteration of the Bold, Storm or some other BlackBerry line, but the unofficially coined BlackBerry Slider continues to pique our interest. Here in the third round of spy shots , we’re seeing the elusive RIM-branded device from a few new angles, namely a round of side shots and a side-by-side with Curve 8900. You’ll notice that the new guys is a bit thicker and longer, and you’ll also see a complete lack of labeling beside the camera. There’s a fair chance that hitting that Source link will simply lead to increased frustration and stress in your life, but c’mon, anything to keep you from finishing up those 2009 taxes is worth a look. BlackBerry Slider undergoes further undercover inspection, side shots emerge originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:29:00 EST

Mobile manufacturer and platform market share stats for the US are in for the month of January thanks to comScore, and as usual, they tell a fascinating (and somewhat unpredictable) story of what’s actually going on at the cash registers. Motorola — which has long since fallen off its high horse on the global stage — still maintains a commanding presence in the American market by representing some 22.9 percent of all subscribers, though that’s down 1.2 percent from October 2009; that’s particularly interesting in light of the Droid’s success, and a possible sign that smartphones still aren’t on the cusp of dominating the phone market overall. Samsung recently touted the fact that it had held onto the States’ overall market share crown, though Sammy was undoubtedly referring to sales, not subscribers — in other words, there are still a ton of legacy RAZRs out there inflating Moto’s stats. Turning our attention to smartphone platforms, BlackBerry OS, iPhone, and Android all saw gains, while Windows Mobile and Palm both saw significant downturns. You might use Palm’s loss of 2.1 percent of overall market share in a single quarter as a big nail in webOS’ coffin, but we’re inclined to believe this includes legacy devices — and considering the huge installed base of Palm OS -based handsets ( Centros , for instance) that are coming off contract these days, it’s neither surprising nor alarming to see that kind of drop

The latest beta version of Opera Mini for Androids is now out as of today, with a new interface and multi-tabs support thrown in. It’s not entirely dissimilar to Opera Mobile 10 on Symbian and WinMo, though. More

The latest smartphone subscriber numbers are out , and the last three months have been kind to Google. Android’s still a relatively small player, but its usage base more than doubled since October. The iPhone, meanwhile, keeps on treading water. More

What looked like a drizzle last night seems to be turning into a full on downpour. The folks over at BlackBerry Leaks have gotten themselves even more facetime with that mysterious BlackBerry slider device — and it looks a lot better than we thought. Right now the theories are flying about just exactly what kind of phone this is, with BBL suggesting it might be the next phone in the Storm family, while Kevin over at CrackBerry has it on good authority that this new handset will be part of the Bold line. Kevin also says that the rumors he’s heard on this device call for a 360 x 480 touchscreen display (sans SurePress) and expectations for BlackBerry OS 6.0 to be onboard. The pictured phone apparently has a battery issue which is keeping it from powering up, but hopefully someone will find a way to spark this thing to life and we can get some more solid info.

You can consider our minds completely and utterly blown tonight, as we’ve just stumbled upon these photos of what appears to be a new BlackBerry device… a vertical slider. The source ( BlackBerry Leaks ) doesn’t seem to be able to confirm the legitimacy of the photos, but we’re mostly convinced that this is some variation of a RIM device. While BB Leaks speculates on the possibility of this being the Storm 3, Kevin Michaluk over at CrackBerry suggests this might not be a device headed to market, rather an early version which has been scrapped, similar to that Magnum handset that floated onto the internet recently (though Kevin suggests that our friends in Canada may very well have plans for something in this form factor). What we can say with assurance, however, is that this device coupled with those new BIS 3.0 Gmail integration upgrades, that forthcoming RIM WebKit browser , and a rumored new OS would help push things into the territory of that dream smartphone we pleaded for back in 2008. Coincidence?

It’s not pretty, but according to BBLeaks this is the Storm 3 , also known as “Slider.” Supposedly there’s some video coming, so maybe we’ll get a better idea of what might be RIM’s newest offering soon. [ BBLeaks via BGR ]

This isn’t confirmed, but with RIM rumored to be exploring sliding-QWERTY devices for a pretty long time, one of our BlackBerry connects dropped some info on us and we wanted it to share it. Here’s what we know: • It’s a portrait-oriented slider. While most people assume a device with slideout keyboard would end up being something like HTC’s devices, we’ve been told this particular handset is more like the Palm Pre in terms of layout. • The phone will run BlackBerry OS 6.0 • The rumored device will 100% support Wi-Fi 802.11n • The resolution unfortunately has not improved, it is still 360×480. • No word on if this will have a touch screen, but we’d assume so, and our source alluded to this possibly being what the rumored BlackBerry Magnum/Dakota evolved into.

The Palm Pre unveiling stands in my memory as one of the most refreshing moments in modern history. Palm had done it—they had created a great phone Nokia would’ve killed for. But today, that’s just not enough. As Palm teeters on the brink of either ruin or acquisition, let’s take stock of what they did right: • They abandoned an entrenched but aging platform for something new an innovative, and they didn’t half-ass it: Palm OS was dead, WebOS was here. • WebOS was actually good