Click to View

Research In Motion and T-Mobile unveiled the BlackBerry 7100t last Fall. Since then, versions of the inventive smartphone have made their way to Canada, Europe, Oceana (Australian & New Zealand), and England. Soon the handset will make its first stop in Asia.

The mobile device company, along with Hong Kong-based carrier 3 Hong Kong and consultant CSL, announced today that the 7100g—purported to be the version of the 7100 coming from Cingular Wireless—will ship in the Chinese province by the middle of February.


Honk Kong Skyline (image from Wikipedia)

3 Hong Kong and CLS plan to use the 7100g to build on their traditional BlackBerry-based businesses.

The mobile operator's Managing Director Agnes Nardi said, "We were the first operator in Asia to bring the innovative BlackBerry products and services to our users. Since its launch, it has been very well received by our business users with its 'push' e-mail technology and a host of useful features. The new BlackBerry 7100g is another innovative product by RIM."

According to CSL COO Mike Robey, "BlackBerry from CSL has been a popular wireless email solution among corporations and business professionals. We are pleased to introduce the BlackBerry 7100g, which enables a consistent BlackBerry experience in a stylish phone design."

BlackBerry 7100
With these the 7100 series, RIM replaced the BlackBerry thumb-keyboard with one that uniquely merges a keypad and a keyboard. For text entry, each key supports two letters, while predictive text software called SureType helps you accurately input text-so when you press a key the 7100 knows which of the two supported letters you mean to use.

The software's word database encompasses approximately 35,000 words plus the user's address book. As with your word processor's spell-checker, you can add more words to it as well.

SureType support various languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Swedish. So perhaps O2's parent company, mmo2 plc, may bring the device to other O2 branded carriers in Europe.

Since the 7100 mobile handsets are quad-band GSM/GPRS, you can use the smartphones when traveling anywhere in the United States, Europe, and Asia, as well as many other parts of the world.

Additional features include Bluetooth for use with wireless headsets and other peripherals, a bright color screen, and 32MB of RAM. Unfortunately, there is no way to add more memory because the devies do not integrate a memory card slot like many other smartphones.

Of course, the devices can connect to RIM's renowned enterprise software, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, for access to corporate e-mail and data.