14 DAY TRIAL // The same day RIM has officially unveiled its first touchscreen product – BlackBerry Storm – the handset was confirmed for a release in Canada too, via Telus. This, although, in the press material issued by RIM, the company only mentioned that the smartphone would be out via Verizon and Vodafone. Anyway, it's somehow natural that the Storm be on sale in Canada too – since this is the home country of Research in Motion.
Although Telus is the only Canadian carrier to present the BlackBerry Storm on its website, Rogers and Bell – Canada's first and second largest carriers – are probably preparing to launch the new smartphone too. In consequence, about all the mobile users from Canada will be able to buy it, regardless of their favorite mobile operator.
When available from Telus, BlackBerry Storm will be among its best-looking and best-featured smartphones ever, being a true rival to HTC's Touch Diamond, which is currently sold by the third largest Canadian carrier for as little as $199 (with a contract agreement for three years).
Coming as a device suited for both business and multimedia users, BlackBerry Storm packs the following features: a 3.25 TFT touchscreen display with "clickable" feedback, on-screen QWERTY keyboard, accelerometer, internal GPS, advanced Web and email capabilities, document reader and editor, a 3.5mm headset jack, Music and Video players, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, a 3.2 Megapixel camera with auto focus, flash, geotagging and video recording, 1GB of internal memory and external card support, for up to 16GB (the SanDisk 16GB cards should be out soon).
No word yet on the Canadian price of BlackBerry Storm 9530, but this should be close to the one of HTC Touch Diamond.
Users interested in knowing exactly when Telus will release the BlackBerry Storm can sign up for notifications on the carrier's official website, at this address.