BlackBerry Storm 2 to cost £35 per month
New handset specs leak out ahead of launch
The BlackBerry Storm 2, expected to be announced this week by RIM and Vodafone in the UK, will cost £35 a month on a two year deal, with the phone thrown in for free.
Sources close to the manufacturer have revealed to TechRadar that pricing of £30 per month as widely reported is incorrect.
The new BlackBerry Storm 2 will launch exclusively on Vodafone, and will feature enhancements over the original Storm, including a more accurate text input and improved SurePress screen.
Could it be Magic?
It will also have a 3.25-inch LCG screen, with the same HVGA resolution as the HTC Magic. A 3.2MP camera without flash is also on board, with autofocus and image stabilisation.
Improved BlackBerry software will be included too, as RIM seeks to make this phone one of its stand-out products of the year, and prove that it can provide a decent touchscreen device to its supporters.
As previously mentioned, the new Storm will come with Wi-Fi rather than just relying on 3G like before, and have a heavy duty 1400mAh battery life, as well as 256MB of flash memory.
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Sleeker lines
The overall appearance of the phone has been improved as well, with a sleeker chassis, hard keys in the touch screen and a chrome ring around the outside.
Based on the pricing for the Storm last year, the BlackBerry Storm 2 is likely to have around 500 / 600 mins of call time for the £35 a month, with a fair bundle of texts and an unlimited internet bundle.
This price puts the phone squarely up against the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre in the smartphone race, so RIM obviously believes it's got a handset worthy of such competition to be unveiling the Storm 2 at this time.
Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grew with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.