o2 launch blackberry for consumer market

eth0_

o2 today launched the Blackberry 7230 on the consumer market, according to enn.ie
Wonder when it'll be available in the shops/if it'll be on speakeasy?

http://www.blackberry.com/products/blackberry7200/blackberry7230.shtml

flywheel

would be great if they begin supporting non Blackberry devices like the XDA 2 and P900...

BrianG

eth0_

They're not exactly joe public phones though, are they. And they're a lot more expensive than a blackberry.

eth0_

Price is a bit steep, here's the press release:

Another Initiative from O2 to Get Your Email on the Move
18th May 2004


O2 Ireland today announced the arrival of the new BlackBerry 7230TM, a first in Ireland for consumers wanting an email service outside the confines of their home or office. Available only from O2 Ireland, this new consumer version of the BlackBerry has email on the move capabilities, allowing you to access your personal email wherever you are, from home or the office or out and about with friends and colleagues. The new BlackBerry comes with an integrated mobile phone in an attractive lightweight blue casing with a high-resolution colour screen and has superb battery performance.

Traditionally, the BlackBerry was only available to the business customers of O2 but with this new consumer version, consumers can access their Internet based email such as O2.ie, hotmail.com, eircom.net or any other personal address to stay in touch wherever they are. The BlackBerry keeps people in-the-loop while they_re on the go with push-based technology that automatically delivers email and other data to the wireless handheld. The BlackBerry is the first such colour device that is triband (it can be used in the US, Canada and the Asia-Pacific region) and can be used in dozens of countries around the world, thanks to roaming agreements between overseas mobile operators and O2 Ireland.

Available now from O2, the BlackBerry 7230TM comes with a recommended retail price of eur379 including VAT with price plans from eur30 per month for three MB of data (typically 1,000 text emails).

jesus_thats_gre

379 quid, ouch!!

flywheel

well I wouldn't view the Blackberry as a 'joe public' device either and it's not inexpensive... maybe they will opt roll out support on 'joe public' handsets like the Nokia 6810 and 6820 when they are available - would also be great to see a Series 60 implementation too...

as the only Blackberry capable devices (that aren't a Blackberry device) O2 have currently available are the XDA 2 and P900 that's why I had mentioned them specifically

plus you can get them to iSync with a Mac - which should be interest your good self - the Blackberry doesn't (as yet)

BrianG

eth0_

I thought o2 had been doing blackberry for around 2years now for business customers?

I'm amazed at the price....379...they're much cheaper in places like Canada where every other person has one, practically.

flywheel

Originally posted by eth0_
I thought o2 had been doing blackberry for around 2years now for business customers?

they had Blackberry devices running on the network when GPRS was rolled out - but so far on O2 only the XDA 2 and P900 are the only non-Blackberry devices that have a Blackberry 'client' available for them

hopefully when they introduce the likes the Nokia 6810/6820 they will also have their Blackberry features enabled - would be a great solution / better fit for 'joe public' being a more regular type of handset

BrianG