Terrible.

FranklinTurtle

I like it, i haven't had a flip phone since my moto timeport and kind of miss the form factor.

Milkham

looks like crap. And, I think the flip phone fad is passing...

Pepper

What a dumb design.

Why can't they just put a full QWERTY keyboard in a landscape mode?!

netrox

That looks like something McDonald's would include in a Happy Meal. The design crew needs to be directed to the nearest volcano to be sacrificed to the cell-phone gods for creating such an ugly Blackberry.

whiteknight89

Screams fake.

jonny

That looks like ass (and I'm a RIM fan)

notnb

Well one of the best rated and selling Smart Devices, is/was the Samsung i500 running Palm. A Clamshell smartphone with a touch screen, but this has the "pearl" which might bring the price down and remove the nasty battery drain of the pearl getting bumped in your pocket. It is a form factor that is often forgotten, but where is a clam with a qwerty?

shaniac

I don't care about the phone, but those photos suck. Don't those guys know how to focus correctly?

photophile

The weird sheen is a protective sticky sheet. Look in the top left and you can see the tab for you to peel it off with.

SMSDHubbard

RimShot: The absolute dead last people to copy the RAZR. I'd expect nothing less for hipster investment bankers.

smackswell

Follow to where the middle finger is supposed to meet with the palm. Probably right under the "1" key. That would suggest that there's a gap of about 14 inches between his middle and his ring finger.

Sucks to be him!

_badtziscool

it looks photoshopped because the reflection of the person holding it looks like it is behind the screen image. normally it will look like the reflection is in front because the shiny glass/plastic is on top....and really, do you think someone getting their hands on this would say to the RIM rep "I really like this design, do you mind if I take it in bathroom with me for a minute?" and the rep would be all "Sure, I dont see any problem with that".

rainsfather

I like how these photos were obviously taken in the men's room. Corporate sneak, anyone?

bandit

My username dictates that I not hate this phone entirely.

Kickstartheart

but why...

and WILL IT BLEND ?

fernsheldon

@photophile: Fixed-focus cell phone camera maybe? That's my guess. I know the one in my Nokia is terrible.

@Kickstartheart: "Kick... Star... The... Art?" I don't get it! But very esoteric of you!

bailey_ca

@bailey_ca: Actually, it breaks down to kick/start/heart. Possibly clever, but never meant to be esoteric. Although, it also references a Motley Crue song, which was entirely unintentional!

Kickstartheart

doesn't look great but I'm keeping in mind that its RIMs first flip phone

kswiss19

Look how skinny the guy's thumb is in the second photo ;) Looks shopped to me.

Dearhaw

That seems to be an awfully massive flip. Hinge needs to be mondo beefy to handle the angular momentum. Serious durability issues.

Whole thing looks to flip out to a compact, oh, I dunno, foot-o-phone or so. That's certainly trendy.

My take on smartphones: No real point in making any form factor in particular, because they are all best used with an earpiece so that you can do the smart stuff (PDA functions) while on the phone. I prefer the brick style (my Treo, BB's, even most of the Windows smart-ish phones) from a convenience and logic standpoint.

Eh, nits. It will sell massively to the BB crowd, you heard it hear first.

ps61318

It's nice to BB becoming more mainstream with their devices.

bms

I broke down and got a Blackberry Pearl last month, but this thing gives me no regrets.
On the other hand, the fact that the iPhone is finally coming to Canada tis summer did make me start kicking my head.

Lorne

If it has Wi-Fi, I will be interested.

JChristopher

look at his pinky in relation to the surface of the phone...FAKE!

TheKidMillz

I have to keep my BB locked all the time or it makes prank calls -- even in the holster or on the passenger seat. Might be less likely with a flip phone.

That said, that design is bricktastic, I will NOT have a non-qwerty smartphone, and the poster who suggested a lateral flip was right.

kexline

the form is nice - the sofness OK but the internal curves ir 'styling' for want of a better word not needed on higher level gear - purity of form is more required.

flyboy

@Kickstartheart: Emergency room doc? EMT/PM? Motorcycle salesman? Enquiring minds want to know....

ps61318

ewwwww! crackberrys!

guitarmunkey05

@Lorne: I also got a BB Pearl, but I bought it unlocked, so now I don't have any obligation towards Rogers. As a general rule, never buy a phone from the provider when you can have an unlocked on at a reasonable price.

Franssu

I've got a Pearl, and I'm happy enough with SureType. It's far from perfect, but it's very nice to be able to carry something shaped like an actual phone, and not an oversized brick that tries to cram a complete phone into your pocket. In fact, I'm convinced that the older Blackberries shipped with belt holsters out of necessity, since they were so damned huge. SureType's a necessary compromise for me, but it brings up a crucial Blackberry flaw at the same time:

The damned thing will call anyone it can if it's not locked by the official slipcase with the built-in magnet. A flip phone would fix that, while still giving me a pocketable Blackberry. Granted, this isn't the prettiest phone on the planet, but I don't carry a Blackberry because it looks nice, I carry one because it works better than anything else out there for nigh-bulletproof mobile e-mail. It's really nice that they're finally making more than one "phone-shaped" model, at any rate.

RaptorCK

"Kickstart: First Blackberry Flip Phone Needs a Kick in the Design Pants"

But can't this be said of any Blackberry? I don't remember ever seeing one that was very "stylish"_

uberfu

I like how that second photo is sharply focused on the floor :)

med

A lot of people like Flip phones, we just aren't the right crowd. If is comes with BB os 4.6 (full html email/css 2.1 support) it will do just fine on the market.

RIM has been expanding its for factors for a while now, including with the upcoming touch screen (dubbed iPhone killer by internal employees).

Captain Angry

I remember Samsung tried something like this a few years ago when I worked for T-Mobile. In the time we had them on the sales floor, we never sold one.

Sasquatch

coming from a designer, just.. no.

origamimavin

Technically, this isn't the first flip Blackberry. It may be the first manufactured by RIM, but Samsung released a flip phone with the same SureType keyboard and BB email software on T-Mobile (the Samsung SGH-T719).

tdoshier

This is probably a prototype, explaining the crappiness. Anyway, the place this was shot in reminds me of the bathroom of a local T-Mobile store.

videoCWK

i like a lot; but, like others, i think it should be a "hot dog bun" design and not a clam shell

bobbiac

My eyes... zee goggles... zey do nahthing!!

@uberfu: Pearl. Pretty damned sexy.

macserv

Since the photos are obviously fake, why are we even talking about this phone?

In addition to all the other lame photoshoppy artifacts mentioned above, how about the completely different lighting between the hand and the background? (neon, saturated orange vs. crisp and clean.) The two elements exhibit different exposure characteristics altogether - - one was probably shot without flash in available incandescent light, the other under fluorescent. The noise patterns and overall grain don't even come close to matching. And what are those pink blobs near the thumb in both pictures?

However, this comment is not really about the phone or the fake, it's about the peeps who keep slapping comments up here as if nothing happened. "Ahh, yes, and I love the placement of the USB slot, and do you think RIM will make it in a gold color?" It's a non-issue. Let's move on to boomerangs in space.

colorspace01

This looks to be the first product from the new head of design at RIM - a former Nokia guy. Not surprising that the design lacks emotion. It's a shame RIM lost its former design leader to the Industrial Designers Society of America. He's responsible for much of the great BlackBerry designs that are on the street today.

Bailey95

@ps61318: Grocery clerk and college student, actually. I just liked the sound of it.

Kickstartheart

@Kickstartheart: Well, it got me thinkin', so it has the evocative thing going for it.... And who knows, any one of those things may lie ahead for you.

ps61318

@Kickstartheart: I know. It was late at night and I was trying to be a smart-ass. So I wasn't particularly clever either. ;)

bailey_ca

RIM make has the worst design team.

jpitsch