Redfly Mobile Companion Now Compatible with BlackBerry Smartphones

[Ed Hardy]

Celio Corp has just announced that its Redfly can now be used with some of the latest BlackBerry models. This allows users to turn their smartphone into a netbook with a large keyboard and display.

This accessory puts whatever is displayed on the phone's screen on its larger, higher-resolution display, and allows users to enter text with a nearly full-size QWERTY keyboard.

The Redfly was previously available only for Windows Mobile, but can now be used with several RIM devices: the BlackBerry Bold 9000, BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Tour 9630.

"BlackBerry is a leader in the smartphone market and has an overwhelming acceptance among business users," said Kirt Bailey, president and CEO of Celio Corp. "We're confident that BlackBerry smartphone customers will enjoy the convenience of using Redfly's larger screen and keyboard to type emails, browse the Internet, and edit documents."

Pricing and Availability
The new driver for BlackBerrys is available free of charge, but naturally it requires a Redfly to accomplish anything.

There are two versions. The Redfly C8N has an 8-inch display and a media port. It sells for $250. The Redfly C7 has a 7-inch screen and costs $200.

These devices offer a WVGA (800x480) display, trackpad, and up to an 8-hour battery, plus USB and VGA ports.

In addition to the three BlackBerry models listed, the Redfly can be used with more than 60 Windows Mobile devices.

Source: Celio Corp.

Related Articles:

• inPulse Smartwatch Puts Your BlackBerry on Your Wrist

[Ed Hardy]

I'll have a review of the new BlackBerry driver for the Redfly on the site tomorrow.

-

[Antoine Wright]

Dang, I know a number of IT departments that would absoutely freak out in a good way to get this. Talk about managed computing, shoot, this just took out all the normal computing licensing costs and put them all to BES/Exchange, and whatever apps to develop to enable something more than email/doc editing.

Too bad the browser isn't up to snuff, wonder if Opera can work something out there from an enterprise level for that piece. But Redfly + BB, that's nice.

[Ed Hardy]

Originally Posted by Antoine Wright

Too bad the browser isn't up to snuff, wonder if Opera can work something out there from an enterprise level for that piece.

I've been trying out Opera Mini 5 Beta on a Bold, and I'm fairly pleased. It's not as good a solution as the Android browser or the iPhone's Safari, but it is much better than the default Blackberry browser. And it works fine on the Redfly.

That said, RIM recently acquired Torch Mobile, the company behind a very nice WebKit-based browser for WinMo. This group is expected to make the BlackBerry browser into something people actually want to use.

-