It looks like Research in Motion is still working on their BlackBerry Storm franchise; after having released the Storm 2 last year, America's leading smartphone maker will be following up with a Storm 3 later this year and a Storm 4 in 2011. The Storm series, in their tablet touchscreen form factor, will be competing with the yet to be released BlackBerry Bold 9800 Slider, which uses a touchscreen that slides in portrait mold to reveal a keyboard.
The Storm 3 will be a multimedia and gaming device with RIM reportedly working with EA on bringing some gaming titles to the touchscreen tablet phone.
RIM is also said to be perfecting its SurePress touchscreen technology for the device. SurePress has been a polarizing technology for users as it is a different method of touch interaction, which requires an actual screen press--like a touchpad click--to make a selection.
Specs
• 1.2GHz processor
• 3.7-inch 800 x 480 capacitive display
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band UMTS/HSPA
• 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording
• 8GB eMMC (storage for apps and data), 512MB of RAM
• microSD slot
• Magnetometer
• Proximity sensor
• Accelerometer
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 2.4GHz b/g/n and 5GHz a/n Wi-Fi + UMA
• 3G Mobile hotspot
• Optical trackpad
• 1230 mAh battery
• BlackBerry OS 6.1
• OpenGL ES 2.0
As per Engadget, the estimated time of availability is rumored in Q4 this year. The handset is also rumored as a “Holiday Surprise” from RIM. There is no word on the pricing yet but we can speculate this handset to be around $ 200 with a bi-annual contract on some carriers.
