Haha, I see BoyGenius has changed his avatar following this morning's excitement. ;)

I doubt this is a bad move, by any stretch of the words. The 7100 debuted and within a few months (around 3 months, if I remember correctly), it had already accounted for 25% of all T-Mobile's BlackBerry sales TO-DATE! That's INCREDIBLE. This is a consumer-directed device set to compete in a fairly saturated market. It will have its niche and gain a foothold that we likely have not seen yet. Within 4-6 months, this will be the best selling device RIM has available, imo. Very smart on T-Mobile's part to forego the 7130g and press for the 8100. We're looking at a release on T-Mobile 'soon', although my rep wouldn't give me any specific dates (or estimations).

now if we can just teach him how to use a darn image editor, it'd be better... :)

This does explain why T-Mobile skipped on the 7130xx.

T-Mo internal reps have got to be laughing their heads off.

This is how it's going to look in October:

Cingular: grey 8700c and 7130c
T-Mobile: all black 8700 and 8100, plus the 7100's of yesteryear going like hotcakes.

I'll give it to T-Mo, they're "bringing sexy back."

:)

I don't think this is a bad move at all. My guess is that the 8100 will be marketed more towards new consumer users as compared to existing commercial BlackBerry users. SureType, allthough hated by some who haven't been able to make the jump from a fully QWERTY keyboard, is far superior to entering text via the numeric keypad that most people evaluating BlackBerry 8100s would have been accustomed too. Granted, some of these users won't like it either but not nearly as many as those converting from full QWERTY keboard BlackBerrys.

fixed his avatar... :)

Classic! (y)

yeah, took me 15 mins to find the damn font... heh.

Yo BG... is that a trackball in the middle? I know dawg said jostick, but that looks an awful lot like the trackball that they are using on the Sidekick 3. Maybe this is T-Mo trying to create a distinct feature set across their phone lines. I was very upset about the lack of scroll wheel, but if that is a trackball I think it's an even better move.

Excellent...I plan to pick one of for the gf when it is released...

Also... I have to say I'm really happy they stuck with the suretype. I'm a 7100 user and I love that the T-Mo suretype buttons are big and flush to each other (unlike Cingular's version where the keypad has all that unused space). My GF uses the 8700g and I just can't get down with those tiny keys. Plus the number of taps you use on suretype is no more than on a qwerty, in fact it's less if you use slang and shortcuts.

I know some of you feel differently but it really is a great keypad once you get the hang of it.

for those of you who cant wait, here comes ebay: eBay: Unreleased Blackberry 8100 Cell Phone! (item 160016405577 end time Aug-06-06 15:20:51 PDT) lol

wow. whoever was selling that phone on ebay (if they really had one) must really not have wanted it considering they sold it for $250 and free shipping! man i wish i would have seen that. i would have bought it. the new 8100 is awesome. i love suretype and i would probably use the camera just for fun. anything else you'd care to share with us BG?

::cough 8703e cough:: (y)

I am not 100% convinced that it does not have a scroll wheel. I want to see shots of the other side. It's still too early to say what enchancements they will make. My guess we will see 2 more updates to devices this year.

Just to be fair,

In Oct 07 everyone will be saying T-What? when HSDPA is fully rolled out and Cingular has 3g blackberry exclusive.

sorry...i don't keep up with the 87xx devices

yes its a trackball but not like sidekick 3 more joystick type trackball...also it supports bluetooth profiles so you can bluetooth over mp3s, files etc, AND YOU READY...

VOICE DIALING, VOICE COMMANDS!

hey blackberry whats my battery life? 100% BG...

there is no scroll wheel

i wish i could be a badass like boygenius.