The Blackberry Storm, due any day now at a TBD price, gets a little more official with this PDF manual. Speculation about both pricing and release date is reaching a fevered pitch. The device is known to be launching on Verizon. The exact timing and price are up in the air, with an expected release of around Thanksgiving and after rebate pricing guesses ranging from free (unlikely) to $399 (my guess). You can download all 249 pages and have a peek yourself at the functionality inside Research in Motion’s first touch screen phone.

Blackberry Storm User Guide via Crackberry

I read with some interest this article from Gigaom about the unreleased Blackberry Storm. As you may know the Blackberry Storm is Research in Motion’s first ever touch screen Blackberry. It has been gathering some attention due to its lack of physical keypad and the use of haptic touch (meaning the screen moves when you push it). This phone however has not been released, has no price and no Wi-Fi. According to the article below, this phone is going to be both an iPhone and G-1 killer due to the willingness of Enterprise customers to embrace the phone (at whatever price Verizon decides to slap on it) and the fact that an app store (and some apps) will be coming real soon now. (insert eye roll here). Will this kill the iPhone and G-1? (The G-1 by the way is open source and backed by Google which probably has enough money to buy RIM several times over). Interesting article.

Why Blackberry Storm is An iPhone (and G-1) Killer

A press release announcing the new Blackberry Storm was just issued. In the USA the Blackberry Storm is slated to arrive on Verizon before the end of this year. Based on the repeated delays with the other much awaited Blackberry, AT&T’s Blackberry Bold, it looks as if the Storm may actually hit the USA shores first. Looking over the specifications, there are several things that make this Blackberry unique - touch screen you can actually push, 3.2 MP camera, 1 GB memory, 480 x 360 pixel display.

I’m in a holding pattern on this one for two reasons. First, the media software on my previous Blackberry’s was mediocre and the newer media software will transfer iTunes music but only DRM free songs (ie not purchased through the Apple Store). Secondly, there’s an extremely surprising lack of hands on demonstrations of the OS and I’m not sold RIM improved their key OS features (browser and media player). This is a device aimed at the consumer market as a defensive play against the iPhone. While pricing hasn’t been announced, after the “early adopter scalping” take place - I predict this will be in a similar consumer pricing bracket as Sprint’s Samsung Instinct - making it somewhere between $ 99 to $149 after rebates and contracts.

Blackberry Takes The World by Storm via JAMM

A slide deck that shows some additional features of the Blackberry Storm appeared over the weekend. There was also a “dancing Storm” video that leaked out last week which greatly played up the Storm’s multimedia prowess. There’s only one slight problem. Even though the Storm is going to allow you to sync iTunes music - it won’t sync/play anything from iTunes with DRM. OK - you already knew that. Believe me there are lots of people who will miss that slide bullet point and wonder why their iPod music that they purchased over the last few years doesn’t sync to their new Storm. (Note: Just pretend for a minute that people buy music legally via iTunes and yeah, I totally agree that DRM in any form sucks). Of course the workaround for this issue is to remove the DRM from your tracks by burning all 15,000 of them to CD and then ripping them…. I’m just saying before you buy a Blackberry Storm thinking you’re going to have a seamless way to copy your iTunes music — be sure to read the fine print.

BGR - Blackberry Storm

Check out this video of a Blackberry Storm demonstration that just appeared on YouTube. This was probably shot at a Vodafone pep rally of some sort since the video itself seems to have been caught on a cameraphone at the opening of  a meeting.  All through this little movie I’m thinking two words. iPhone Wannabe. Watch the video for yourself. The entire production is people dancing and playing up the Storm’s music and multimedia capabilities. Not a single suit and tie toting business user in sight.

via: BGR