BlackBerry Thunder: Five things you never knew

So you’ve checked out all the spy shots, sized it up against the competition, and think you know all there is to know about BlackBerry’s touchscreen iPhone-slayer? You’re wrong. Here are five things we’d put money on being new to your noggin.

Fact 1: What’s in a name?
BlackBerry Thunder is in fact going to be called BlackBerry Storm. We preferred the working title, but it’s RIM’s call and Storm is how the company will be formally introducing it later this year.

Flat 2: Haptic fantastic
BlackBerry Storm will showcase the latest haptic technology – that’s where you feel some physical response to jabbing the touchscreen. With the storm, you’ll be able to feel localised feedback from the actual spot on screen you prodded, not simply the whole phone. This should make typing texts and e-mails feel a lot more natural, as well as making them a lot more accurate.

Fact 3: Screen genie!
Storm’s touch screen will boast the highest resolution display of any BlackBerry. With 360×480 pixels making up the pin-sharp picture, it should be a visual treat. And yes, it’s a higher resolution than the iPhone 3G.

Fact 4: You called?
BlackBerry Storm will be one of the first non-Apple handsets to feature visual voicemail. This is where your recorded messages appear on the touch screen as a list, letting you quickly tap into the one you want. The iPhone had it from day one, but since Apple’s lost the rights to use it exclusively, it’s fair game for other phones now too. It’s bound to be ultra-popular on BlackBerry, as let’s face it, voicemail’s mostly used by busy business types that rely on their handsets as personal secretaries.

Fact 5: Works with iTunes
The Storm will feature BlackBerry Media Sync, which means you can actually sync with and swap music with iTunes. Cheekily, RIM has copied one of Apple’s most unique features, which will make it almost as easy for BlackBerry users to load non-DRM laced tracks from their iTunes library right onto their Storms. Brilliant!

Have we missed anything? Give us a shout in the comments section below, or vote in our poll!

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