RIM and Lenovo have teamed together to create a very confusing product they have spent 2 years developing. It is a ~$150 54mm ExpressCard which goes into your Lenovo Laptop and performs a very odd function. It will grab your most recent email from your BlackBerry over Bluetooth even when the laptop is off. That way your computer will always have the most recent email.
The card is essentially a Bluetooth radio with 500 Mb of storage and works with Outlook/Exchange, POP3, & Gmail. This might be cool if it would automatically let you use your BlackBerry as a tethered modem, but it doesn’t. From the wording of RIM’s press release, it will not even let you send email! The only use I can see for it is for attachments that open better on a laptop, otherwise this is a useless piece of… Who the hell is going to pay $150 to read email they already have on their BlackBerry? This will also tie up their Bluetooth connection and kill their BlackBerry battery and not letting them use a headset while on the go! Many workers who have $150 to spend and are mobile enough to justify a product like this probably already have a wireless data card built into their ThinkPad.
These kind of products make me wonder why RIM is not spending time on more useful projects instead of pipe dreams. Like speeding up the boot time of my BlackBerry. Or fixing the bugs on the Storm. Or finally releasing a truly stable Bold OS.
Engadget has a pretty good breakdown and video of it in action at this link. Personally, I am surprised that Engadget does not tear RIM a new one with this utterly useless product! I would have expected more from RIM & Lenovo.
So I have to ask. Can you guys think of one good use for this?
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) - Posts: