By now, you may have noticed BlackBerry 8800 pictures from Boy Genius floating around the Internet. What you may not have noticed, however, is just how different the various pictures of the BlackBerry 8800 are.
In the graphic above we have three different photoshopped renderings of what the BlackBerry 8800 may look like. If you look closely you can see that there are a lot more differences than the color of the case.
When the BlackBerry Pearl was first leaked, we heard that RIM was moving away from the specific letter designations for the same device on different carriers. I think that we assumed that they would stop creating different styles of the same device for different carriers as well. If these leaked BlackBerry 8800 renderings hold true, that assumption was probably not the right one.
RIM is probably under intense pressure from the carriers to create some carrier-specific design differentiations for their various models.
The carriers are used to that from RIM by now, and so that makes it even more difficult to stop that practice.
Since these design differences are merely cosmetic, with modern manufacturing technology they are not that difficult to accomodate.
So, do you think that each of these devices will just be called the BlackBerry 8800, or, will the carriers have specific designations?
The guy from Europe who posted the images on blackberryforums.com said this:
“the first one [of the images posted] is the 8800 called indigo. Santa Claus will bring it to Europe maybe in December.
BUT: The other two devices [in other images posted on blackberryforums] will come late in Q2 2007 and they are called crimson. One is T-Mobile, the other is vodafone.
Have fun with it! I’ve read the technical spez.. It’ll be a cool device!
Together with BES 5.0 it’ll be an fantastic combination. Forget Windows mobile, repligo, GPS-Pucks, Extra Navigation Software etc.. I think, 2007 becomes a fantastic BlackBerry-Year. ”
http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-8800-series-discussion/47938-what-do-you-think-about-8800-pictures-inside.html#post326266
Looks like the Blackberry 8800 road map has just been released. Awesome.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/