If you’ve not got round to buying an iphone yet or haven’t been able due to purchasing restrictions from Softbank then you may want to check out the latest gadget from Docomo and RIM coming to Docomo stores sometime in the next few days of February, the Blackberry bold.
Blackberry
Japan is a bit behind other countries in getting this gadget, but if you love typing emails on your phone then this is the gadget for you. Full qwerty keyboard, worldwide coverage and wifi so you can use it at home to browse the internet as well as on the move.
What’s also interesting is that Docomo has dropped the price for the actual Blackberry service to around 1575 yen. They are also adopting a similar data pricing model as Softbank for the iphone starting at 1029 yen and then moving up in tiers.
So in theory if you are light on data use, then the Blackberry bold will cost around half the cost than the previous 8707 version.
No idea if they will reach Okinawa at the same time, but unlike the previous version that had to be ordered from Tokyo this does seem to be a mainstream model, so if you are interested in a smartphone and haven’t dipped a toe in the Apple yet, then stop by a Docomo store towards the end of the month and see if they have them in!
The special website is only in Japanese right now but you can check it out here:
http://smartphone.nttdocomo.co.jp/
