14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion has been long rumored to plan the release of a BlackBerry handset that would boast a sliding form factor, dubbed the BlackBerry 9800 Slider, and a great amount of details on it emerged during the past few weeks, suggesting that an official release date might not be too far in the future. Some of the latest details on the matter suggest that the handset would land on the market in Canada exclusively on Rogers' airwaves.
The handset's arrival in Canada is one thing that all users should be happy about, it seems. The upcoming BlackBerry 9800 Slider should include not only a portrait sliding QWERTY keyboard, but also a touchscreen display, just as RIM's Storm 1 and Storm 2 mobile phones do. Moreover, it seems that the device should run under the BlackBerry OS 6 platform, which should add even more features into the mix, and which can be seen in the video embedded at the bottom of this article.
According to MobileSyrup, the specifications list of the yet unannounced BlackBerry 9800 Slider should include a 3.2-inch touchscreen display that can boast a 360 x 480 pixel resolution, a full QWERTY keyboard and optical trackpad, a 5-megapixel photo snapper, support for 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities, GPS receiver, a 3.5 mm headset jack, 4GB of internal memory, and a microSD memory card slot with support for up to 16GB of additional storage space.
However, it should be noted that none of these details on the upcoming sliding device was officially confirmed. RIM has yet to announce the release of its BlackBerry 9800 Slider, and also to go official with the carriers that would receive the device. Unfortunately, it seems that no specific info on when the new mobile phone is expected to be put on sale emerged for the time being, nor on the pricing that ti might sport when made available. Keep an eye on this space for more on this.