Boy Genius Report has had a nice run of leaks detailing RIM's Blackberry updates for later this year. They show an updated Blackberry Torch with much better internals and a new Blackberry Storm, the Storm 3. The first two models of the Storm were terrible failures for the company, so you have to question why they would resurrect that line. The Storm 3 is projected to have the following specs:
- 1.2GHz processor
- 3.7-inch 800 x 480 capacitive display
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
- Tri-band UMTS/HSPA
- 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording
- 8GB eMMC (storage for apps and data), 512MB of RAM
That's actually a pretty strong step up from previous Blackberries. Given that the relatively new Torch has a better onscreen keyboard than the Storm ever did, the Storm 3 might actually be more usable with these kinds of specs and a better virtual keyboard. You have to wonder, though, why they're bothering with a 1.2 GHz processor after RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis seemed hell-bent on dismissing the "gigahertz" war just recently. It's actually nice to see competitive hardware put out by RIM.
Oh but wait, that's not the whole story, since these slides give projections for the Torch 2 to be released in "late Q3 2011." So how about the new Storm?? Oh, September 2011? Okay, never mind then. Nobody will care at that point. Just to remind you, as Chris Ziegler of Engadget puts it, those specs won't impress anyone as we approach Q4 '11. And he's right. We're already seeing dual-core phones set to hit Verizon and AT&T in this quarter. As usual, RIM will be behind the curve (every pun intended) with these phones, making you question whether or not Lazaridis was just blowing smoke when he said we could expect the awesome QNX interface from the Playbook to hit smartphones when dual-core was possible. On second thought, you're probably not questioning anything, since you already know the answer.