14 DAY TRIAL // In case you were eagerly waiting for the first BlackBerry mobile phone with support for 4G connectivity to land on the market, you should know that it might take a while longer for that to happen.
Apparently, Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is not rushing to the new technology, as the production costs are still high, when compared to the interest it enjoys at the moment at the consumer end.
RIM is considering the possibility that it would launch a 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) BlackBerry smartphone, but it not seeing the technology as mature enough to start building the device now.
Fudzilla reports that some of the main reasons preventing RIM from starting the development of such a device would include the high cost of a chip that would add LTE support into the mix, along with low battery efficiency.
The fact that LTE hasn't seen wide adoption as of yet, even if the technology is already being deployed by major wireless carriers around the world, is another reason for which RIM chose to wait a bit longer before taking its first step in the area.
The news site claims that two yet unannounced handsets from the company, codenamed Monaco and Onyx II, would still be on track to land on shelves soon, but that none of them would include support for 4G connectivity.
Although RIM is not keen on offering a LTE-capable device in the near future, it might do so, provided that the chips that enable it would become cheaper, and they would offer better battery life than they do at the moment.
Even so, months would certainly pass before the first LTE BlackBerry device would be launched on shelves, as RIM might unveil something solid in the area only in summer.
Although some of the last year's rumors suggested a Storm 3 handset would bring LTE to the BlackBerry world in early 2011, we might have to wait for the end of the year to see such a device released.