

Take a look at 3's 15 a month unlimited internet and text plans if you need any more convincing.

While low-cost Android devices still command a premium of around 25 a month, and are beset by numerous functionality issues, the HTC Tattoo's resistive - and therefore relatively finger un-friendly - touchscreen being a prime example, low-end prices are only going to descend further. This budget-busting BlackBerry move is a savvy one. Earlier this year, RIM announced a partnership with T-Mobile that resulted in a pre-pay BlackBerry 8110 bundle that would offer 12 months unlimited email and mobile internet for just 179.99.īeing able to do this demonstrates that RIM has created its own not-so-little mobile internet empire, not constrained by as many outside factors as carriers' solutions, such as the overwhelming load placed on O2's mobile internet service by iPhones streaming all sorts of music and supposedly funny video clips across the country. It's perhaps this tight or some might say narrow focus that has enabled RIM to extend the BlackBerry range right down to just a couple of rungs above the lowest range of mobile buyer. It's the Curve series that has proved to be BlackBerry's most popular line of late, supplying T-Mobile US' and Orange UK's top-selling devices in Q2 and Q1 FY10, respectively.Īnd yes, the Curve line boasts a design you couldn't help but recognise as being Blackberry through and through.

Granted, the BlackBerry line does have its flip and touchscreen entries, with the 8220 and Storm devices, but these amount to offshoots from a central line that RIM would be foolish not to include, even if they do simply graft the BlackBerry experience onto another, perhaps less optimised, form factor.
