So for everyone who's a Nextel fan, a buddy of mine has seen and touched a prototype blackberry with qchat. I was told it has the same look as the 8830 but with a few differences. I myself have seen a regular flip phone with qchat and played with it, but I wasn't allowed pics. The eta for the qchat phones is feb/march is was I was informed, though with the hybrids they gave one eta and didn't release until a few months later. However I have not received any word on the blackberry w/ qchat eta. The reason, there's quite a few quirks that are still being worked out.

Anyone else hear about this, or have any pics that aren't supposed to be shown?

Haven't heard anything and you usually here something a few months before release.

I would love this for work . I know the att model of the curve has push to talk in it so its possible for the new Sprint curve to have q chat it only makes sense. I just might have to hold out and see what happens.

To add more stir to this Thread, I still have not heard anymore than what I previously have about the qchat blackberry. However qchat is very much alive as shown by this article: Qchat-enabled LG for Sprint in the wild - Engadget Mobile and this article: Samsung Z400 Brings QChat Direct Connect to Sprint | PhoneNews.com.

Any insiders here with info on a qchat bb?

If someone stumbles onto this post looking for a qchat bb here's a thread I posted with more info No blackberries with qchat for the current time...

i was just at a sprint meeting on tuesday 5/12/08 and thete is a new nextel bb comeing the 4th quater of 08 . its a curve with iden push to talk and wifi . they showed a pic of it and gave out just this info on it.

I know you don't have the pic...but I would love to see a pic of that...I, personally, use a tmo 8320...but many of my users are stuck with 7520s/7100is because they have to have direct connect.

Wirelessly posted

If it looks the 8830, maybe it's the Bold. It is suppose to come out 3rd / 4th quater, and it has wi-fi.

Far too little, too late. I left Nextel in December of '06, once it became clear that Sprint's management had KILLED WiDEN (iDEN's closest equivalent to GSM's EDGE data technology) and had scrapped plans to release an iDEN version of the 8700 series . My 7520 was practically falling apart, and I simply COULD NOT wait any longer for an upgrade to a newer, QWERTY . So, I left Sprint/Nextel for T-Mobile, and I couldn't be happier! Nextel | Done... courtesy of Sprint.

RIP, Nextel. You WILL be missed.

Jack, by the time your 2-year contract with TMO is up, you may be looking to get back on the saddle with Nextel's new iDEN BB.

For those of us who are required to use Nextels, attached is letter (06/27/08) from Nextel's President, Danny Bowman, stating among other things ". . . In the 4th quarter, we plan to launch a new BlackBerry on our iDEN platform that will have a full QWERTY keyboard and will be
the first iDEN device with WiFi capabilities. . . "

Sorry for not being on for a while, a WiFi bb is gonna be cool, but if it's on the iden network it may not be as sappy as I'd personally like, I've messed around with the qchat phones and they're nice, esp the ptt part. So I don't see why the new bb wouldn't be qchat...

A new iDEN BlackBerry qwerty device has been long overdue. The legacy Direct-Connect has the shortest call-setup time and latency time among "walkie-talkie" push-to-talk services. BTW, QChat is a PTT software for CDMA devices, developed as an alternative to iDEN, which are suppose to interoperate. . .