The BlackBerry trackball brings a slight blush to our cheeks — fiddling with a tiny nub just strikes us as a little bit dirty.
(Credit: RIM)
We hope we'll feel the same frisson of forbidden user-interface-element excitement when we get our fingers on the new "optical trackpad", which is replacing the trackball on the BlackBerry Curve 8520.
We haven't tried it yet, but we're told that the trackpad acts like a tiny version of the mouse pad on a laptop — although RIM assures us it's insanely responsive to make up for its small size.
Although RIM's not confirming the price yet, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 promises to be an inexpensive phone for people looking to upgrade to a smartphone and find out what all the fuss is about. It'll have Wi-Fi and quad-band connectivity, but no 3G, so you'll have to stick close to shore when you're surfing the web.
The Curve 8520 looks to be a good choice for social-networking addicts, thanks to its full QWERTY keyboard and apps for accessing Facebook and MySpace, and access to the BlackBerry App World to grab more.
It will also have a puny 2-megapixel camera, a media player and the ever-handy 3.5mm standard headphone jack so you can use your own cans to listen to your tunes. RIM promises a 2GB microSD memory card will be included, along with 256MB of on-board memory.
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I had a sneak preview of this model the other day. To be honest, I couldn't tell much difference between the current track ball and the new optical trackpad. Both work very well. The new pad doesn't get full of dust, but that's never been a problem for me. I must just have clean pockets. ;^)
I also heard it will be significantly cheaper than the existing model, but screen resolution is apparently slightly down - not that my tired old eyes could tell.