DoCoMo halts BlackBerry Bold sales due to overheating

Reuters reports that DocoMo halts sales of BlackBerry Bold because the phone can overheat while the battery is being recharged.
DoCoMo said it has sold about 4,000 high-end Bold phones, and about 30 users have complained the phone's keyboard area had heated up. The company said it has received no reports of users getting burned or of phones catching on fire.

RIM says issue appears to be limited to Japan and rules out battery problem. The sales of BlackBerry Bold devices in other countries are unaffected by this matter.

Turn Your BlackBerry into a Remote Control

Unify4Life's AV Shadow can transform your BlackBerry smartphone into a universal remote giving you complete control over all of your home's audio/video equipment.
Another product from Unify4Life called Garage Shadow can turn your BlackBerry into a garage opener.

How Fast is Your BlackBerry

Cisco has an application to test the network speed of iPhone and BlackBerry Storm. The application is called Global Internet Speed Test (GIST). 

The test is performed by downloading a known quantity of data from a single web server. The size of the data is different for the different types of network connections, so that the test will take roughly the same amount of time from the user’s perspective. For a cellular network test, 256KB are downloaded. For wireless, 512 KB are downloaded. A single download is performed, timed in milliseconds, and results are reported in terms of 1000 bits per second (kbps). 

BlackBerry Curve: American's Most Popular Handset

According to a report by RCR Wireless, BlackBerry Curve is the most popular handset in U.S. for the month of December.

Here is the top 10 list:

Device	Ranking in December	Ranking in November
RIM BlackBerry Curve	1	1
Apple iPhone	2	2
BlackBerry Storm	3	3
LG Voyager	4	6
LG Dare	5	4
BlackBerrry Bold	6	5
Samsung Rant	7	Not Ranked
Samsung Behold	8	9
Samsung Instinct	9	10
LG Env2	10	8

RIM upgraded by National Bank

Research In Motion was upgraded from "sector perform" to "outperform" by National Bank today. Target price is changed from $45 to $60. However, RIM stock closed over 4% down today as the broad market is looking at 12-year low.

BlackBerry Bold Smartphone Now Available in Japan

Research In Motion (RIM) and DOCOMO today announced that the BlackBerry Bold smartphone is now available at DOCOMO corporate and retail channels nation-wide in Japan.
The new BlackBerry Bold smartphone from DOCOMO features a newly designed QWERTY keyboard with Japanese text input support, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi. Among the smartphone's rich set of multimedia capabilities is an optional 2 megapixel camera with video recording – DOCOMO will also offer a model with no camera – and an advanced media player for music, videos and pictures. In addition, it includes the new BlackBerry Media Sync application, allowing customers to easily synchronize their iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone.

Here is the full release.

New BlackBerry Curve 8900 Smartphone available in Turkey

Avea and Research In Motion (RIM) launched the BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone in Turkey on Feb 19. The new BlackBerry Curve 8900 has an expansive feature set that keeps users easily connected to family, friends and colleagues. In addition to its exceptional phone, email, messaging, organizer, web browser and multimedia applications, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone features global connectivity support, built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, a next generation 512MHz processor and a stunning hi-resolution display.

Here is the full release.