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Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry gets cool matte black paint job, keeps crazy price
Is it even possible to get more exclusive than RIM and Porsche Design's P'9981 Blackberry? We're not sure, but the phone's coming back (at least to Porsche Design's boutique stores) in a matte black finish. For high-flyers with low expectations, the device packs a QWERTY keyboard in the same exotic typeface, 2.8-inch 640 x 480 touchscreen and Porsche Design's UI, running on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor. but if you're willing to shell out around $2,350 for this particular phone, you probably don't care about any of that. The Vertu-baiting smartphone will appear in shops mid-January 2013 -- unfortunately right before RIM takes the wrappings of its new OS and new hardware.
Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry screeches into Canada
Hear that, Toronto-based readers? That's the sound of Porsche Design's P'9981 BlackBerry doing donuts at a store near you (well, relatively speaking). Fresh from satisfying many a midlife crisis in London, the luxury phone is now available in Canada via the fancy Porsche Design boutique store in Toronto's Yorkville neighborhood, according to MobileSyrup. Folks willing to pay the pinky-raising premium price of $1,899 essentially get a BlackBerry 7 OS phone featuring upscale Porsche Design touches like a metal keyboard, stainless steel frame and leather-wrapped back cover. Still need to do some tire kicking? No worries -- you can take the phone out for a virtual test drive with our P'9981 review.
Refresh Roundup: week of April 30th, 2012
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 review
Research in Motion, regardless of how you may view its recent history or its long-term future, still has a stronghold on the corporate world. Its lineup of BlackBerry smartphones are known for great battery life, comfortable keyboards with intuitive shortcuts, top-notch native email and Enterprise clients and -- most important to businesses -- unrivaled security features. Sure, its influence is waning as competitors have caught up in some areas (and surpassed it in others), but there are plenty of companies that have clung to their CrackBerries and held on tight.RIM's been hard at work trying to regain lost momentum by introducing a series of new devices featuring its latest OS, BlackBerry 7, and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9930 series has been the star of the show so far. The problem is, it's not flashy enough. How is a C-level exec supposed to walk proudly on the golf course with a $300 (subsidized) phone? Talk about embarrassing. Have no fear, poor corporate top dog, luxury brand Porsche Design has come up with a solution: the $2,300 BlackBerry P'9981, a Vertu-ized version of that lesser handset you wouldn't be caught dead using. BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 hands-on BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 hits FCC Porsche Design P'9981 introducedThe P'9981 is available only in the UK and the Middle East for now, so until the device arrives in the US this Spring, anyone who lives stateside will have to rely on retailers to import some in. Fortunately we got the hookup by our friends at Negri Electronics, who happily lent us one of the few handsets they have in stock. As a result, we're now able to discuss the real questions circling around such a Richie Rich smartphone: what in the blue blazes makes this so expensive? Is it even worth it? How different is it from a standard BlackBerry Bold 9900? You'll find these answers and plenty of mysteries unravelled after the break.
BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 hands-on (video)
Porsche Design's executives use BlackBerry religiously, so when the time came for the luxury brand to consider adding smartphones to its portfolio, Research in Motion was a natural -- and perfect -- fit. Problem is, BlackBerry phones don't necessarily exude the luxury look and feel necessary to attract Porsche Design's customer base, so CEO Juergen Gessler got in touch with RIM to see if the two companies could collaborate on a phone that would take the best of BlackBerry and combine it with Porsche's premium design. Presto, the device now known as the P'9981 was born. We had the chance to behold the phone with our own eyes and hold it in our hands, so go past the break to read more about what we thought.
Porsche Design theme ported to BlackBerry 9900 / 9930, saves you a small fortune
If you want some of that Porsche Design look, without the German engineered price, then check what just pulled up on the driveway: a port of the custom theme and icons. Sadly, only BlackBerry 9900 / 9300 owners -- which share much of the same hardware as the P'9981 -- running BlackBerry OS7 (not 7.1) can give their handset that new car smell. This means the sharp lines and luxurious brushed finish that made the P'9981 catch our eye in the first place will remain firmly in those pockets deep enough to afford it. Tap the source link if you still want to add the racing stripes to your current saloon.
Harrods reportedly nabs Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry as UK exclusive, costs a princely £1,275
The department store Harrods is no stranger to exposing Londoners to some of the finer -- and more eccentric -- things in life, and so after learning that it'd be bringing RIM's Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry to its shelves as a UK exclusive, we couldn't help but smile with curiosity. While we've yet to see anything official come across the wires, it's reported that this sexy slab of unlocked goodness will retail for £1,275 and hit stores before the month's end. We've attempted to confirm these details with RIM's UK group but, as it turns out, Brits like going home early on Friday, too.
Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry provides a long-awaited design jolt, compensates for a lot
Remember that downright futuristic BlackBerry we spied back in September? Say hello, all over again. RIM and Porsche (of all companies) have just taken the official wraps off of the Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry, a frighteningly beautiful new slab that offers up a forged stainless steel frame, hand-wrapped leather back cover, sculpted QWERTY keyboard, and "crystal clear touch display." It'll ship with an exclusive Porsche Design UI and a bespoke Wikitude World Browser augmented reality app experience, not to mention the "premium, exclusive PINs that help easily identify another P'9981 smartphone user." Fancy. As for specs, it's boasting a 1.2GHz processor, HD video recording capabilities, 8GB of onboard memory, Liquid Graphics technology, a microSD expansion slot, an inbuilt NFC module and BlackBerry OS 7. We're told that it'll be available from Porsche Design stores later this year, but mum's the word on the (presumably stratospheric) price. Head past the jump for T-break's hands-on vid. Update: MobileSyrup reports that the device shown here will sell for "around $2,000," and they'll be (unsurprisingly) limited in quantity. %Gallery-137690%
