Vodafone UK officially announce Blackberry Storm

The Blackberry Storm 9500, the first ever touch-screen BlackBerry smartphone, purpose built for Vodafone, will be available to pre-order from today at www.vodafone.co.uk/storm, through Vodafone’s retail stores and by telesales. Customers can also pre-register interest through Vodafone’s retail partner Phones 4U. The BlackBerry Storm pricing will start from free on a two year contract at £35 per month on a Best for Text plan that will include 600 minutes and unlimited texts*. On Vodafone’s Best for Talk £35 plan customers will receive 700 minutes and 250 texts and unlimited landline or Vodafone to Vodafone calls. Best for Talk and Best for Text Plans also include unlimited internet and email, with Vodafone’s satellite navigation service Find&Go free for the first six months.

“Today’s announcement brings the power of the BlackBerry Storm 9500 exclusively available on Vodafone, directly into the hands of our customers – whether they are consumers or business executives,” says Nick Read, CEO, Vodafone UK. “Our customers tell us that they want a single phone that can also give them the most secure, reliable email and messaging experience possible combined with all the desirable smartphone features, and they want it at a price that’s affordable. The BlackBerry Storm delivers all of this and more.

“Vodafone’s high speed mobile internet network will complement the BlackBerry Storm perfectly giving customers a great value, unique multimedia experience. There’s no doubt that this will deliver something exceptional to our consumer and business customers, helping them all make the most of their time.”

With an elegant black design, the BlackBerry Storm combines messaging services including secure email, SMS and social network notifications in a single inbox. It also offers superb sound quality and a 3.2 MP camera with video capabilities that exploit the screen’s stunning clarity to deliver advanced multimedia performance coupled with Vodafone’s fast and reliable mobile broadband network.

The new user interface combines the familiar dedicated menu and escape keys common to BlackBerry smartphones and adds support for multi-touch capabilities allowing users to easily select, scroll, pan and zoom, making navigation fast, easy and intuitive. The BlackBerry Storm features an enhanced high performance browser, which provides users with a high speed web browsing experience, which can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode.

The tactile SurePress^TM 3.25 inch touch-screen gives users a variety of different sense experiences. Despite its flat surface, users feel the sensation of actually pressing down on virtual keys which light up when touched. This makes it quick and easy to type texts and emails as well as navigate through the phone’s functions. Customers will also have the choice of using a full QWERTY, SureType or multi-tap keyboard.

By removing the traditional physical keyboard, more space has been dedicated to the high definition 65k colour screen, allowing customers to comfortably view attachments such as JPEG, GIFS and TIFFs as well as view and edit documents.

The ground-breaking screen with its 480 x 360 pixel resolution display switches from vertical to horizontal as the handset is rotated, while automatically changing the format of the keyboard from multi-tap or RIM’s SureType® to full QWERTY. A wide range of songs and full length videos can be downloaded, so customers can take advantage of the stunning clarity of the screen and the smartphone’s incredible, high quality audio.

The BlackBerry Storm retains the full functionality and security of the BlackBerry solution® but is also ideal for avid Facebook, MySpace and YouTube users, while Flickr fans will love the ease and speed of being able to directly upload their pictures just seconds after taking them.

Customers can access Vodafone’s entertainment and information services including Vodafone Music, Google Maps and Find&Go navigation, and the Vodafone live! portal whilst also benefiting from a removable battery with excellent talk and standby time, and up to 16GB of exchangeable memory.

via Press Release