RIM’s newest release brings us BlackBerry OS v5. It has all of the standard features you’ve come to know and love, email, SMS, IM, web browsing, etc. The Bold takes all of that and serves it too you on a 624MHz processor. i would say the only weak spot is the web browser.

The Bold is 4.29″ x 2.36″ x 0.56″ and weighs in at 4.3 ounces. Size wise, it feels about the same as any other BlackBerry, but it was much lighter than I expected. The back has this interesting faux-leather cover for those of you who want to feel like you really got your money’s worth.

The control surface proved a nice improvement. RIM replaced the traditional trackball with an optical trackpad. Personally, I like this interface much better. It feel much smoother and more precise than a ball. The trackpad sits flush with the body of the phone, so it won’t get damaged or worn out nearly as often. The keyboard proved to be easy to type on as well. The keys themselves are a little small, but the sculpted edges prevent you from slipping. Other dedicated buttons include a keypad lock key and a mute key on the top, voice dialing on the left side, and a volume rocker and programmable button on the right (default to opening the camera).

The display is something to behold. Not only can you watch streaming video with the new and improved JavaScript and streaming protocol support, but it all looks absolutely beautiful. The quality of pictures and video playback is pretty damn good. The camera itself isn’t too shabby either. 3.2 Megapixels with image stabilization, a 2x digital zoom, and flash. The onboard mic for video recording isn’t the greatest, but that’s to be expected.

In terms of connecting to the outside world, the Bold has not only 3G and Wi-Fi capability, but UMA support. Meaning you can make calls over a wireless network, without using your plan minutes.

T-Mobile hasn’t given us a firm release date. But you can expect it in time for the holidays for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

Technical Specs

• Memory: 256MB of internal flash memory, with a microSD card slot
• Battery Life: Talktime – 6 hours     Standby Time – 19 days
• Display: 480 x 360 color display, TFT LCD
• Camera: 3.2 MP camera with 2X zoom, flash, and video
• Optical Trackpad
• Keyboard: Full QWERTY keyboard, backlit
• Bluetooth: v2.1
• Headset Jack: 3.5mm stereo headset
• Media Player Supported Audio: 3GP, MP3, WMA9/WMA9 Pro/WMA 10, MIDI, AMR-NB, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
• Supported Video: DivX 4, DivX 5/6 partially supported, XviD partially supported, H.263, H.264, WMV3, MPEG4, Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 (Flash support)
• Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g (w/ UMA support)
• GPS: photo geotagging capability
• BlackBerry OS: v5.0

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 has finally been announced. Details have been leaking in about the “Onyx” for months and most of the seem to be true in hindsight. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 successor rocks a Tour-like keyboard but ditches the trackball in favor of a little trackpad like in the Curve 8520. The camera has been upped to 3.2MP and the screen is now a 480 x 320 display. Just like the Storm 2, the 9700 runs BlackBerry OS 5.0 and all the goodies are included like threaded messaging, updated BB Messenger, and BlackBerry Maps.

Best of all RIM is launching the phone to nearly every GSM carrier in North America and Europe in November although International carrier-specific pricing is hard to come by right now. That will probably change in a day or two though.

AT&T has announced that it will sell the phone for $199 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and T-Mobile is expected to follow suit although it’s press release doesn’t mention a price. What it does mention however is that the phone will be able to make unlimited calls off of WiFi for $10 per month, which is something AT&T is slowly accepting too although it seems that AT&T’s flavor will lack that ability.

Whispers of Visual Voicemail coming to the BlackBerry Bold have been lingering for a few weeks now, and now things are about as concrete as they come.

Doin’ what they do with their ninja leak squad, BGR has managed to finagle a set of shots detailing the new Visual Voicemail functionality from head to toe. It all seems fairly simple – tapping into any voicemail in the list brings up playback control, while highlighting one and pressing the softkey allows for callback and message management (We’re wondering what that “Forward” option does). AT&T’s Visual Voicemail infrastructure is already in place – now it’s up to RIM and AT&T to get OS 4.6.0.219 rolled out to the masses.

Zee Germans get the first crack at the BlackBerry 8900, to which RIM has added the Curve moniker. It’s very similar to the BlackBerry Bold, but only has EDGE (instead of 3G). That, and its camera is one notch higher than the Cruve’s 2-megapixel one, coming in at 3.2 megapixels with flash. Fancy man.

It’s scheduled to ship this month for €5 ($6.27) with a two-year contract. Or, you can buy one without any contract at all for €320 ($451).

Someone, either AT&T or T-Mobile (or both) will probably bring it over here, too.

The BlackBerry Bold has been a long time in the making but AT&T finally has the so-called “unequivocally the best piece of hardware that RIM has ever put out” up for sale at ATT dot Com. It’s yours with a two-year contract price of $299 and free shipping. Sure, it might be a 100 bones more than a iP3G but don’t you think the Bold is a bit more upscale for corner office types?

AT&T just told us that the BlackBerry Bold will be released on November 4 for $299. That’s the same price as the 16GB iPhone 3G, natch.

That’s the official date. No rumors, no “sources,” none of that nonsense.

Be there, or not.

If BGR is right, and he generally is concerning RIM activities, AT&T will be launching the BlackBerry Bold on October 27, 2008. No word on why exactly the launch was pushed back from the last date of October 20, but at this point we will take whenever for our BlackBerry craving readers. 

The blurry photo gods have smiled upon us this morning. Or, more accurately, their Photoshop-using cousins have smiled. I don’t know, someone’s happy Up There.

Word on the street is that RIM will announce a Storm-like device at Wireless Enterprise 2009, known by the cool kids as WES 2009. Neat.

There’s also musings that RIM will take it to Palm by releasing a Bold-like device, but one with a touchscreen.

Then again, RIM takes something like forever to release anything these days, so we probably won’t see any of this till 2034.

The iPhone. Not that it matters much, but the stinking iPhone brought home 2008 Gadget of the Year, Best Mobile Technology, Most Stylish Technology and Technological Innovation of the Year from the British Technology Awards. The iPhone has been sweeping similar award lists like LOTR: Return of the King did in the 2004 Academy Awards. Apparently ‘coss the Pond, 2008 is already done and over with, leaving phones such as the G1, BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Storm, and HTC Touch HD out of the running cause they didn’t launch within the first 10 months of 2008. Just saying.

There are some sweet mobile phones coming out over the next few months and a BGR crony turned up release dates for Best Buy’s hotest upcoming phones. The info comes off of a PowerPoint slide and reveals quite a bit.

 

Coming October 26th:

• Sprint – Samsung M540 “Rant”, available in black, purple and red
• Sprint – HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon – Blitz
• AT&T – BlackBerry Bold 9000 (date obscured on image)
• T-Mobile – BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220

Coming November 16th:

• Verizon – BlackBerry Storm

 

Granted, wireless carries and manufacturers alike tend to push release dates around a bit, but this should give you a general idea when you can use your Best Buy Reward Zone points on one of these new phones.

Today RIM announced the Slacker application available for BlackBerry. It was demoed at CTIA and I got a chance to play around with it a little bit.

The relationship brings Slacker Personal Radio to BlackBerry devices. The biggest benefit is the ability to cache thousands of songs. Every time you hit a hotspot the device will sync and update the station. Plenty of music is available from Fergie to Bad Company. If you don’t like something, you can ban the song or artist. Conversely, if you do like something you hear, you can rate the artist or get more info. I didn’t see a “buy now” link, but I’ll bet donuts to dollars somebody is working on that.

Read the rest and see some pics over at MobileCrunch.

Oh, BGR is reporting that the higher ups at AT&T have revealed the Bold will be available in stores on the 2nd of October. He speculates that a full-on launch will be the 6th.

I’m starting to get a tad excited over this device again. RIM, please bring this down south soon!

Jeez – after hearing about the Bold for over 3 months, it’s hard to believe this thing still hasn’t touched down in North America.

Fortunately, that won’t hold true much longer.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Dare I say it, but I think my interest in the Bold is beginning to wane. BGR demos both IE and FF emulators that both crash, but that OS sure does it look pretty. Of course, I can’t pass judgment on something I haven’t seen in person, yet. Any BlackBerry fans being swayed either way by this video?

More review highlights include: a “gorgeous” screen, “We can safely say that this is the best screen we’ve ever seen on a mobile device”; a redone Web browser that “acts more like a Web browser and not a piece of garbage 1990’s WAP browser”; “dream” connectivity with 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS; a really usable keyboard with keys that are “a little squishy, but still firm”; and excellent call/sound quality.

Drawbacks? BoyGenuis said him and the Bold got off to rough start including: three minute start up; hot, crazy battery drama; the need for at least one OS update; and “even with this bad-ass 624MHz CPU, we still get slow downs and we still get freezes. Don’t get it mixed up, it is 100% faster than any other BlackBerry. We just can’t understand why this thing isn’t really optimized like it should be. Ah! Because the OS is from 1999.”

But overall, GBR sounded pretty shiny eyed for the new BlackBerry; “Every BlackBerry users’ dream lies in the Bold.”

Grab that coffee and check out the full review.

Attention Canada-

By now you’ve read that Rogers will be bending you over on data plans if the iPhone 3G is something you’re lusting after and you’re none to happy about it, so I suggest you look down a different path. Why not stick to a homegrown company like RIM and wait a couple weeks for the Bold?

We didn’t say anything about ‘July’ or ‘August.’ It will become available in August. So we’re still on track for [availability] this summer,

Well, there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth.