The team over at The Cellular Guru scored more pictures of the BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider. From what I am hearing this will be the device that launches with OS 6.0 so it should give us a pretty good taste of what is there. The pictures are a bit limited but there is one of the 9800 passing the Acid3 browser test in flying colors on a background webpage of the iPad . 
It looks like RIM has thankfully dropped the SurePress crap on the 9800 touchscreen but it has not been officially confirmed yet. It will be interesting to see how a RIM engineered non-SurePress capacitive touchscreen will work. The keyboard is supposedly the same keyboard from the 9700 so RIM did not sacrifice on that to fit in the slider form factor.
So what do you think of the 9800?
Thanks Tom & Eric for the tip!
@TorontoWireless Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 8:33 AM EST
nice, and as soon as its available i will grab it
NobleRodhos Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 8:58 AM EST
Looks good so far… is that 4GB internal memory??? Sweet!!!
fraziel Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 10:17 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8900
More interested in the OS 6.0 rather than the device..
Tashanna Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 10:26 AM EST
Oh I hope this is coming to Tmo – I’m saving up from now.
Sam K ( View Profile) Beginner - Posts: 102
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 10:45 AM EST
Ronen, no offense but I’m tired of people bashing SurePress. In the above blog posting you said “It looks like RIM has thankfully dropped the SurePress crap”. SurePress in the Storm2 works very well. It helps eliminate typing mistakes, accidentally launching apps, and accidentally selecting menu items or options because you actually have to “click” the screen to select what’s highlighted. I can type very fast on my Storm2 because it feels like I’m typing on a real keyboard. I’ve used other touch screens on some Android devices and there’s no margin for error. As soon as you touch an app, it launches. As soon as you touch a key on the screen it appears.
Nikolaus Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 11:18 AM EST
I agree with Sam K, SurePress was a great invention that was badly initially implemented with buggy software in OS 4.7, but today it is a sweet deal. I’d not mind at all if the 9800 came with SurePress.
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5449
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 11:22 AM EST
My problem with SurePress is that it slows down my typing like crazy. You have to wait between every keypress. For me it is like a keyboard that requires you to push down on each key twice to “confirm” you want to click. The extra “margin for error” adds another click to everything you do… Drives me batty. I wish RIM would just offer an option to turn it off. Something tells me that if they did a large portion of users would turn it off…
dev_guy ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 11
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 11:57 AM EST
I’ve gotta disagree. I don’t feel theres any difference in typing time between surepress and none surepress devices. I believe there was a typing comparison done between the Storm 2 and the iPhone (by an apple supporter iirc). And there was no real difference speed wise. Now what does make surepress better than non-surepress devices is the simple navigation of the phone. With non-surepress devices you have to be mindful at all times of where you’re touching the screen (ie. when scrolling through your apps). Which does take time, always thinking and mindfully touching the screen at a certain spot. I would say mis-clicks occur 10000% more on non-surepress. I personally will not buy another touchscreen device that doesn’t have surepress or some similar technology to distinguish when I want to initiate something or I’m just scrolling etc.
Sam K ( View Profile) Beginner - Posts: 102
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 11:58 AM EST
It sounds like you’ve only used the original Storm because with the Storm2 you don’t have to wait between every keypress since it supports multitouch (which the original Storm did not support) so on the Storm2 you can select multiple keys on the screen at the same time. I’ll admit that the original Storm slowed my typing down because I couldn’t keep both my fingers on the screen at the same time and the original crappy software on it also slowed me down. But that’s not the case with the Storm2. In fact I can type much faster on my Storm2 than on both a Curve and Tour (which I’m now using as my work Blackberry). I also don’t understand what you meant when you said that it “requires you to push down on each key twice to confirm that you want to click”. You put your finger on the key you want and click. As soon as your finger is on the key it’s highlighted (i.e. selected) so there’s no need to push down twice. Maybe you had the key rate, tap interval and hover period (in the screen/keyboard settings) set to values that affected your ability to type on it.
I think I need to take a video of myself typing on the Storm2 to convince people that you can type really fast on it.
Nikolaus Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 11:23 AM EST
OOOH!! 9650 or 9800???? My work who uses Sprint is replacing my 8530 with the 9650 (huge applause) however the 9800 (planned for AT&T) is amazing too. I’m sure both will have OS 6.0 eventually, but looks like OS 6 is designed primarily for a touchscreen. My company puts VPs on AT&T, and the rest of us on Sprint, so if I get a huge promotion maybe I’ll get an 9800 too
Prefer 9800 on T-Mo for sure, with UMA!
That70sGAdawg Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 11:29 AM EST
If it has the same keyboard as 9700- I Don’t want it. I’ll hold onto my 9000 with larger keyboard, and much larger speaker sound!!
pnut69 ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 8
Posted: May 21, 2010 at 1:56 PM EST
will the 9800 be available on sprint? it dont have to be first but will it eventually come to sprint?
Derek Brown ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 264
Posted: May 24, 2010 at 12:59 PM EST
Asb happy as it would make me, I seriously doubt Sprint will see this device for a while.
jforce ( View Profile) Master - Posts: 1149
Posted: May 22, 2010 at 2:15 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8900
The 9800 looks amazing. I hope it comes to Rogers. Anyone know which carrier is getting it first in Canada? I heard they’re planning a summer release. This looks like the ultimate device. It has everything for everyone. I’m very pleased with my 8900, but it would be nice to have that big screen, accelerometer, and touchscreen for movies and games.