BlackBerry Essex (Tour 2) Overview

The BlackBerry Essex, or the the Tour2, just got into the hands of Sal. Although the Tour 9630 hasn't been out for too long, RIM already has it's successor getting ready for release. Sal was able to put together a nice overview of the upcoming Tour2 (possibly the 9650?) and go over the upgrades from the original Tour.

"1) Trackpad: RIM is little by little getting rid of those annoying trackballs that cause problems to most Blackberry users. The Trackpad on the Essex is great, just like the one you can find on a Second Generation Bold (9700), and always reliable. No more sticky trackballs!

2) WiFi: Another very useful add-on by RIM, just like on the Storm 2. No, you won’t be able to make calls through it, but you can certainly e-mail, browse the web, and even send BBMs while on it.

3) 2 GB of internal Memory: Another sweet advantage over your regular Tour. In case you don’t have an SD Card in your Essex you will be able to take pictures and make videos without worrying about buying one.

Rumor has it that the Essex will come out for Sprint here in the US. And as a matter of fact, my Essex is a Sprint phone, but if you are a Verizon Wireless costumer there is nothing to worry about, because we will be getting the Essex too. I had a chance to talk to a “higher up” person from Verizon and they confirmed that they will be getting a “Trackpad Tour”, although they didn’t want to confirm the name or number of such device, they are aware of it already. They haven’t talked about a release date, but on some websites December sounds like a winner, although I wouldn’t hold my breathe on that one. From my personal experience, although I could be completely wrong, December is too close and there hasn’t been many leaks of this phone, so that tells me we might have to wait a little bit longer  for its release (My guess is in between the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2 of 2010)."

There was also a rumor that the camera for the Tour2 has been upgraded. Sal was able to dispel the rumor by taking some test photos. Check them out.