Wi-Fi BlackBerry coming to Nextel, according to Dan Hesse
Yeah, this one sounds pretty strange to us as well. Apparently Sprint’s new CEO, Dan Hesse, let slip at his CTIA 2008 keynote that Nextel would be the recipient of a Wi-Fi-equipped BlackBerry by the end of this year. Last we heard, the only BlackBerry available on the ailing iDEN network was the veritably ancient 7100i, which doesn’t even feature a trackball, let alone a feature as advanced as Wi-Fi. That said, we’ve seen stranger things go down, and a modern smartphone would certainly give Nextel a bit of a shot in the arm. Again, we’re not making any promises here, but all complaints can now be directed at Mr. Forsee (though wading through a pile marked "Spring Complaints" might take you a little while).
This phone is the same form factor as the Blackberry Curve for sprint and has a large battery and cover due to the battery drain caused by Iden and Wifi.
Iden uses sim cards thogh. even thogh sprint is CDMA based. so it would look morle lik the 8820 than the 8320
Probably a qchat enabled curve
Too bad that most people who wanted an updated BB already left Nextel.
This was anounced near the end of his 4Q Sprint Market review.
I dont know any thing about the phone he just wanted to make sure that every one knew that the IDEN network is not dead.
this is not qchat, this is Iden, the qchat Blackberry won’t be out until 2009
sprit nextel just needs to go GSM/LTE
@Galvatron-going GSM now would be pointless for sprint, as balancing CDMA, iDEN, and GSM/LTE would drive sprint so far into the ground the earth will impode-thats just not feasible
Kelvin is right about all the individuals who had Nextel who wanted a new BlackBerry already moved on either to Sprint or to another carrier however this is a good temporary fix to the issue of Nextel not having any new BlackBerry or smartphone equipment.
It’s just about maybe a year too late.
But to all those individuals who still need Nextel and can’t afford to give up their BlackBerry this is an early Christmas.
The Sprint BB rep for the west was telling me this week that the phone will most likely be in the Curve form factor, in fact she said that if they can’t fit the iDen guts inside the curve, it won’t launch. Good news for all lovers of PTT
I’m a two phone geek with a blackberry and nextel. I would gladly go back to nextel if this was true.
HA! I’ll believe it when I see it.
makes sense to put wifi in it since you can’t get high speed data on nextels network.
I use the 7520 Blackberry with PTT from Nextel. I need PTT for work and love having it on a Blackberry. Having a new BlackBerry come out makes this Nextel customer happy. I think Dan Hess will turn this company around.
Confirmed by RIM rep at the Sprint shin-dig on Friday. Don’t know about form-factor, but…
so it will be like the curve?
thats awesome!
any spy photos?
ok, so same story, different day! i have had the 7100i since Oct 2005! Three weeks ago, finally jumped ship to Sprint, 8130 Pearl! OMG!!! Brought 4G memory too. Erased phone book, call log ” A flaw we are aware of on the phone”! BB support on the Sprint side SUCKS!!! # weeks a lots of caffine, i surrendered! i reactivated my ole’ baby, the 7100i lives! wanted the Sprint Curve due out April 14th on Sprint but scared to death to leave again!!! so do i wait, what~~~~ it’s only been 3 long years~~~ or cut my lossed and get the Curve?
I was talking to BB tech and they stated it will be Oct time frame and he said Pearl type with depleted specs, what ever that means, time will tell. Sticking with my 7520 anyway, rugged little bugger and I like QWERTY keyboards.
Personally, I’d prefer to take my chances on the QChat side of the stream; I won’t be upgrading until the EVDO model comes out.
Since it’s a combo model, I would think it has an EVDO RF deck anyway; I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t make it switchable to allow either type of Direct Connect…
And for what it’s worth: the trackball is a *massive* bug, not a feature. It vastly reduces the number of reasonable physical use-cases of the handset.