BlackBerry 9630 Niagara headed to Verizon in May?
By Jacob Schulman 
posted Mar 19th 2009 2:36PM
posted Mar 19th 2009 2:36PM
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Still no wifi? I'll wait until Verizon has world phone with wifi.
Doesn't the Samsung Saga have WiFi, in addition to being a world phone? Though it's not a BlackBerry.
Not sure why RIMM won't put CDMA and WiFi in the same device. And I do blame RIMM here- I mean, if VZW is really the problem, then why wouldn't Sprint or Telus or Bell or any other CDMA carrier on earth have one?
contrary to popular belief, you dont NEED wifi on a phone, if you dont have cell reception chances are you cant find a wireless network to connect to. all of my buddies with iphones and g1's dont even use wifi because it just kills their battery
@d889 Wrong!
I have a BBB. It helps a lot with WiFi. You can actually REDUCE ur battery life by going on WiFi instead of cellular network and get away with subscribing a data plan.
The reason they don't put wifi is the phone is world phone, and they want you to pay for international data plan when you travel outside the US. They do have wifi phone but it's not world phone.
Tom...no carrier in the US is gonna allow you to purchase a BB w/o a data plan...so even if you do use wifi to ease battery life (which i doubt), you're not "getting away" with anything.
I have the Verizon XV6800 with wifi... had it since June and seldom use it. When I do use it, it drains the battery like crzy!
"The reason they don't put wifi is the phone is world phone, and they want you to pay for international data plan when you travel outside the US. They do have wifi phone but it's not world phone."
koolio, that is false. The Samsung Saga i770 is a world phone and has WiFi. I think the old school i830 had WiFi as well. Besides Verizon lets you unlock the SIM card on their world phones anyway so you can put any SIM you want when you travel international so they don't get a penny for it anyway.
@d889, that's funny, because I've seen a crapload of iphone screenshots that have had wifi enabled.
RIM's kidding, right? As soon as the next version iPhone comes with Software 3.0, RIM won't be able to give BlackBerrys away for free. Besides, keyboards on mobile phones are old school.
Am I the only one who can't tell the difference between all these Blackberries? It seems like there's a dozen of them with extremely minor aesthetic and feature differences and they're all ambiguously named with 4 digit numbers. Maybe I'm way off base, but it just reminds me of the flood of EeePC models last year that made it impossible to follow what was what.
Hopefully they'll just brand this as the "Blackberry Bold 9630", (Niagara is just a prototype name) thus associating it with the already known Blackberry Bold brand. The key with BlackBerry, I think, is to look at the brand rather than the number- so Pearl is the consumer brand, Pearl Flip is a flip phone, Curve is the lower-end QWERTY, and Bold is the higher-end QWERTY. (The 8800 series isn't branded, but it's old anyway and is probably to be phased out soon enough) Then you don't get bogged down in numbers, at least.
I'm with you, Chefgon_ign. The recent Blackberrys, sans Storm and Flip, all look the same to me.
Someone let me try out the Storm and I didn't like it. It seemed very sluggish. However, the clicky screen was a neat feature....
OMG pleaseeee be true.
My 8330 Curve needs a replacin.
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When is this coming to AT&T?????????????
I was under the impression that the Niagara was the CDMA Bold.
it's not.
you get the bold.
but i definitely wouldn't mind an updated pearl...
May? That is some good news... I wonder if that will come to US Cellular around that time as well... Hope so because I am stuck with USCC because of work.
As for the whole WiFi business, I don't see why its such a big deal unless your on a Ship or an Airplane that only has WiFi access, or if you want to skirt the data access charges, but I would not do that as I need BES access everywhere. I would argue dead zones constitute putting WiFi on a BB no joke I have not found a dead zone in years... To each his own I suppose.
I know this is very unpopular for me to say, but I really prefer WiFi on feature phones where a data plan isn't required. I don't use much mobile data, but it would be nice to tap into WiFi hot spots while traveling. Sadly, VZW doesn't share my enthusiasm.
please have a pleather back, please have a pleather back...
Nope, not going to be like the Bold. It is a new back design though with the middle looking like carbon fiber. I do love the pleather on my Bold though...
Hopefully the blackberry 5837295*pi/2 will actually stand out from the thousands of other models.
I spoke with a friend of mine who is quite high up at Bell up here in Canada and was told that Bell will be getting the Niagara within 2 months.
I spoke with a friend of mine who's pretty high up w/ RIM and said you dunno wtf you're talking about
"Why does Verizon get all the good one's" At least we are getting the Pre=] !!!
The rumor is a Q3 release on Sprint but judging from history with the Curve, they will sell out and be out of stock for four months.
stop spreading rumors engadget get your story straight get off the band wagon!!!!!
engadget is starting to sound like the boy genius report ohh im sorry i mean the boy rumor report!!!!!!!
I would never trust anything from thestreet or from other financial source ever again after hearing what cramer said about how trader's would use this technique to game any stock, especially rim or apple.
A user from HowardForums, who has been 100% correct with past releases for Verizon, is saying July on this one. I wish he were wrong and it WAS May, but he's too credible to discount his word...