It’s the most wonderful tiiime of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard that before. For this month, that doesn’t seem to be the case. RIM has seemed to epically fail once again. Three times in one month and two times in one week, their services has shut down and CrackBerry BlackBerry users are in disgust; and Tuesday’s outage once again affected all U.S carriers as well as our next door neighbors in Canada as well. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m a fool. The third time, I don’t know anymore. BlackBerry BES/BIS users have been widely affected this whole  year with outages from RIM’s servers. The one thing that is supposed to work and have vital reliability for heavy Enterprise users, is starting to show a pattern is making people everywhere wonder, “Should I keep this”? Here is what RIM had to say about the outage:

A service interruption occurred Tuesday that affected BlackBerry customers in the Americas. Message delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service and SMS services on BlackBerry smartphones were unaffected. Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service.

RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14th to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue. RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.

Yes, it’s understandable that RIM has gone from just being a corporate brand to becoming a household name, but you have to admit that they should have expected this with the release of the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 that regular consumers would start to enter the BlackBerry realm. Eventually I think RIM will figure it out, until then, pray that this doesn’t happen on New Years Eve.

(Update) We’ve gotten sporadic reports today that BlackBerry service — possibly just BIS — has been down for at least a period today, which would amazingly mark the fourth time a serious outage has occurred in RIM’s fortress in just the past several weeks. That’s bad for any device, but it’s particularly tragic for a platform that has staked its reputation on reliability. What’s everyone seeing out there right now? RIM, when will you learn?

Source: Engadget Mobile

Nokia UK recently announced they would be closing their Regent Street flagship shop. Within 2 days, another announcement declaring Nokia USA closing shops in Chicago and New York. This is no surprise, as most of the handset purchased in North America are made through carriers (AT&T, I’m looking at you). Could this mean stronger ties with carriers for getting devices out there? Rogers has had a nice relationship with Nokia, with recent offerings including the N95, N86 and E71. Bell has recently decided to pick up the N97 also. It’s looking as if they’re kicking up their game in North America. We can only hope so, as many manufacturers have been breathing heavy fire into the smartphone war.

With the holiday season approaching fast, we at Smartphone Nation thought it would only be right to make a holiday gift guide to help you choose the perfect the gift. There have been many great phone launches this year; however, a few stuck out as superior. We have though of all major carriers when writing this review, so make sure to take carriers into consideration when making your choice.

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The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is one of the most anticipated phones of 2009. GSM phone users are sick of the Bold and want a new 3G BlackBerry. Well today RIM began by making the phone official with its own website. Within an hour carrier followed with press releases alerting the world that the phone is going to be available on their carrier. AT&T is going to be carrying it “in the coming weeks” and will be charging $199.99 after a mail-in rebate. T-Mobile will be releasing it “in time for the holiday season”. Rogers will be releasing the phone “in the coming weeks” and will be charging $299.99 with qualifying plans. Bell only says that the phone will be released in November.

With the new HSPA launch happening in November. More cellphone companies take a look at different carriers. We heard earlier about the BlackBerry 9700 and 8530 showing up on Bell’s system but an iPhone? Complete shock to me. The Globe And Mail reports that the iPhone will be available for Bell and TELUS carriers for their upcoming HSPA network set to release in November before the holidays.

Bell Canada and Telus Corp. will begin selling the iPhone next month, breaking the stranglehold on the device that their rival Rogers Communications Inc. has held for more than a year.

Both carriers hope the addition of Apple Inc.’s groundbreaking smart phone to their lineups will help them sign up higher-value customers and shift the balance of power in Canada’s mobile market.

Neither Bell nor Telus would confirm that they would add the iPhone to their lineups. Apple also declined to comment. But people familiar with the matter said the two carriers will announce a working partnership with Apple as early as Tuesday or Wednesday and begin selling the device in time for the launch of their new network next month

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As much as myself and others are trying to understand why Bell has decided to pick up BlackBerry devices dedicated to GSM carriers, it’s never a bad thing. It seems that the BlackBerry 8530 (codename Aries) and the BlackBerry 9700 have showed up on Bell’s system. Full retail price of the BlackBerry 8530 is showing at $499.00 and the BlackBerry 9700 is priced at $599.00. No information on release date but we’ll be waiting for Bell’s HSPA network to launch first.

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Microsoft recently announced the availability of “Windows phones” (AKA Windows Mobile 6.5 phones). Starting on October 6th, these phones will be available on carriers all over the world including AT&T, Bell, Sprint, TELUS, and Verizon. These phones are from various manufacturers including HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba. Windows Mobile 6.5 introduced a new OS that has a lot of new features. The user interface has been redesigned to be more touch friendly and make everything easier to use. It will also have a new version of Internet Explorer that will be much improved.

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The long waited and anticipated Palm Pre smartphone has finally revealed a release date for Bell today and should be available on August 27. The Palm Pre was released about 2 months back for Sprint subscribers in the United States and we have heard many good things about it but Canadian users seem to have always been late on cellphone releases. No information yet on pricing but expect it to be the same price as when Sprint released it. Maybe this will attract some of the people that are waiting on the iPhone 3GS that’s sold out nation-wide in Canada.

[Source via IntoMobile]

Just walked by Costco (Merivale, Ottawa) today around 4pm and stopped at Wireless Wave when I noticed the Blackberry Tour. I asked the sales rep and they told me that they just received it yesterday morning (Saturday, July 11, 2009) and asked if the price tag was accurate since Bell was selling it for $249. He said that their having a sale for $198. They’re not sure when it’ll last till but get it while its still cheap.

Bell customers can consider themselves lucky. They will be getting the BlackBerry Tour 9630 in mid-July according a anonymous source. Verizon customers, we still do not have a date for you.

Along with this great piece of news coming some great documents. An internal spec sheet has leaked out with tons of information about the upcoming phone. Here are the specs:

Size (L x W x D): 112 x 62 x 14.2 mm
Weight: 130 grams
Memory: 256 MB internal Flash memory
Expandable Memory: microSD located under the battery door cover
Battery: 1400 mAh removable/rechargeable cryptographic lithium cell
Battery Life: TBD
Keyboard: 35 key backlit QWERTY
Display: High resolution HVGA 480×360 pixel
Camera: 3.2 MP camera, flash auto focus
GPS: Assisted, autonomous and simultaneous GPS enabled with preloaded BlackBerry Application for e911 capabilities
Media Player: Video format support MPEG4; Audio format support MP3, AAC AAC+ etc
Bluetooth: Bluetooth V2.0; mono/stereo headset, hands-free, PBAP
Headset: 3.5mm stereo headset capable
USB Port: Enables charging and high-spead data synchronization via USB “A” to micro USB “B” cable
Network Support:
Quad-band 850/900/1800/1900MHz
GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks
Single-band: 2100 MHz
UMTS/HSPA networks
Dual-Band: 800/1900 MHz
CDMA/EVDO Rev A networks

Check out the full sheet after the jump.

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