Russia Gets a Clamshell Blackberry

Russian mobile phone manufacturers are mostly known for producing luxury and highly exclusive handsets that you can usually get your hands on only after paying an unreasonable amount of money.

Now while this handset is not Russia-manufactured, it is developed for use on the Russian market but manufactured by IXI Mobile in California.

Ogo is a pretty unique device as design, coming in a clamshell form factor, with a QWERTY keyboard, a wide and rather large LCD display and all of the features that you'd expect a Blackberry-like handset to carry including push email, instant messaging (ICQ) and RSS support.

The user will also be able to view and modify documents, including PowerPoint presentations, Word or PDF documents.

All these features and the Ogo's interesting design should be enough to make any Blackberry user jealous and willing to purchase one of these handsets.

Moreover, the price the handset comes at should make it even more desirable. For the first time, the people from Russia get a mobile phone that people from the other parts of the world would actually like. There is no info regarding this, but the handset may become available somewhere else apart from Russia.

VimpelCom, the first Russian company to list its shares on the NY Stock Exchange, that currently has over 47 million subscribers, is expected to market the Ogo, as their latest productivity tool, to small and medium-sized businesses in Russia.

VimpelCom customers will be able to pick one up for $79.99, after an instant $30 rebate with a monthly subscription fee starting from $17.99, which is a pretty low price to pay for a device of this type.