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.

The whole announcement includes some pretty interesting figures for mobile sales. HTC is the number four smartphone manufacturer, while Palm ranks 10th, with just a little over 200,000 Pres sold. Microsoft holds 9% of the mobile OS market, slightly ahead of Android’s 2%, though expect those two to switch places by this time next year; and Symbian still holds 51% of the OS market.

A patent application filed by RIM suggests a dual-layer touchscreen with both capacitive and resistive layers. The capacitive layer would be on top, obviously, and could be used for quick finger-based movements and multi-touch gestures. Underneath, a resistive layer would allow for precision activities like drawing, handwriting, or games.

It’ll probably cost quite a bit more than a regular screen, and you’ll be paying a premium for the privilege on top of that, but it might just be worth it.

[via Electronista]

Bellevue, Wash., and Waterloo, Ontario –T-Mobile USA, Inc., and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the new BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520 smartphone, a new addition to the BlackBerry Curve series of smartphones, with availability expected on August 5.

The slim new BlackBerry Curve 8520 is an incredibly approachable smartphone that comes in two attractive colors from T-Mobile – black and frost. For people who like to be connected, it provides easy mobile access to email, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and popular social networking sites (including Facebook® and MySpace) and features a highly tactile full-QWERTY keyboard for comfortable, accurate typing. It also features rich multimedia capabilities and access to music, games and other mobile apps for entertainment on the go.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is a world phone, and is also Wi-Fi®-enabled to arm customers with fast Web browsing and Wi-Fi calling. T-Mobile customers can continue to get great mobile coverage and unlimited nationwide Wi-Fi calling with T-Mobile’s Unlimited HotSpot Calling service as well as unlimited nationwide calling to five people with T-Mobile myFaves® service.*

In addition to providing the industry’s leading mobile email and messaging solution, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is designed to be efficient and convenient. It introduces an innovative touch-sensitive optical trackpad, which makes scrolling and selection smooth and easy for a great navigation experience. It is also the first BlackBerry smartphone to feature dedicated media keys, smoothly integrated along the top of the handset, giving customers an easy, convenient way to control their music and videos.

“People increasingly expect a rich, diverse experience with their phones because they’re using them in new and different ways,” said Travis Warren, director of product marketing, T-Mobile USA. “Adding the BlackBerry Curve 8520 to the T-Mobile line-up gives our customers a phone capable of helping bring balance to the chaotic demands of a busy professional and personal life.”

“More and more cell phone users are choosing to upgrade to a smartphone and the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 will undoubtedly convince many more people to make the switch. It delivers all the great messaging, social networking and multimedia features that have made BlackBerry the top-selling smartphone brand in the United States,” said Carlo Chiarello, vice president, product management, Research In Motion. “T-Mobile customers are going to love how easy it is to keep in touch on Facebook and MySpace and the full-QWERTY keyboard is amazingly fast and comfortable for typing on the go.”

Key features of the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone include:

· Full-QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive optical trackpad for reliable, responsive typing and navigation

· 256MB Flash memory and a 512Mhz next generation processor for enhanced performance
· Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals
· 2 MP digital camera with zoom and video recording

· Advanced media player for music, pictures and videos, with dedicated media keys and a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, plus BlackBerry® Media Sync, which makes it easy to quickly sync music from iTunes® or Windows Media® Player with the smartphone**
· Access to BlackBerry App World™, featuring a broad and growing catalog of third-party mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones. Categories include games, entertainment, social networking and sharing, news and weather, productivity and much more

· BlackBerry® Internet Service support for access to up to 10 supported email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts such as Yahoo!®, Windows Live™ Hotmail®, AOL® and Gmail™; and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support, which provides advanced security and IT administration features for corporate deployments
· Expandable memory via hot swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot, supporting cards of up to 16 GB today and expected to support next generation 32GB cards when available; a 1GB card is included
· Built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) with support for T-Mobile Unlimited Hotspot Calling service

· Quad-band world phone: EGDE/GPRS/GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

The new BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone from T-Mobile will be available on August 5 at T-Mobile retail stores, Wal-Mart Stores, select authorized dealers, and online at http://www.T-Mobile.com.

BlackBerrys are generally durable devices. I had a BlackBerry 7130e for almost three years until my son gave it a bath in a cup of ginger ale. This dad’s BlackBerry somehow survived a trip into a hot oven. It needed a new case afterwards, but it still works alright.

Couple of weeks ago, like a good dad, I was baking with my 10 year old daughter. I couldn’t find my Blackberry afterwards and was looking everywhere. Tried calling my number etc. When the cookies were done, I opened the oven and found my BlackBerry on the cookie tray: well cooked!!!

The plastic casing was warped, very soft and burning hot. After a cool down, to my immense surprise, when I switched it on, it worked…!

The keys were sticking a bit and the camera has lost some of its sharpness but otherwise, all is well. I have now picked up a new casing and it looks quite new again. They keys are OK again.

I quite liked the grunchy look but have to admit that it is easier to use in its original version.

Anyone have else have tales of incredibly tough cell phones?

Hopefully this means the two will combine forces and produce a BlackBerry with a killer navigation system. $10 says that the two companies can get something on the market before the Garmin-Asus does. They have been working for years and we still haven’t seen anything on retailer’s shelves.

Laptop Mag:

Co-CEO Jim Balsillie was criticized when he said that there was a “new reality” to making smart phones when it came to scrambling to get the Storm to market. Many interpreted his comments as an excuse for RIM for releasing a buggy or unfinished product. Do you disagree with that interpretation?

CEO Mike Lazaridis:

I think there’s some truth to the fact that these devices are becoming much more complicated, and of course we do a lot of testing every time before releasing these devices. And I think that it’s unfair. That’s our first touch product, and you know nobody gets it perfect out the door. You know other companies were having problems with their first releases.

Read the entire interview here.

Look at his past: He was involved with Apple through OS 8 to 10.3 where the company made huge strides in OS usability. OS X eventually surpassed Windows in terms of usability during his tenure. Windows fans might argue that, but the man left in 2003, which is when MS was working on craptastic Vista. There is even a chance that he was involved with early iPhone development, but his influence would have been very limited given the time frame. 

After Apple, he moved to Microsoft where he was a software architect and eventually headed up Live Labs and eventually put out the stupendous Photosynth.com app. There is no question that this man has drive and vision, but lets hope that it carries over to the mobile field. RIM’s next-gen OS is key to the companies longevity. Apple, and even Microsoft, has shown major commitment to the mobile market, and this isn’t saying that RIM hasn’t, but here’s hoping that Don Lindsey can lead the company forward.

All three handsets should come in the 9000 series and are headed to GSM carries such as T-Mobile and AT&T. The Driftwood will probably end up at T-Mo seeing as the Wi-Fi supports UMA, which allows for cellular calls to be routed to Wi-Fi networks. The other two handsets, The Onyx and Magnum, both sport similar specs such as GPS, a camera, QWERTY keyboard, and Wi-Fi but lack UMA support. We wish we could tell you when these will launch, but sorry, can’t do it. We don’t know. A guess: late summer.

Here’s a spicy rumor for you all to enjoy. Apparently RIM is planning some sort of BlackBerry TV store/service/thing, and may launch it as early as CTIA next week. (CTIA is like CES, but just for cellphone stuff; actually, a more accurate comparison would have been with Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress; thank you.) It’d be a subscription service, and the TV shows download over a Wi-Fi connection; it won’t use your data (3G if you’re lucky) connection at all.

Of course, these are just rumors. Supposedly there’s more than a few networks who have licensed content for there store, so there’s that.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the BlackBerry Storm not have Wi-Fi? Wouldn’t that be the best BlackBerry to view TV shows? So, if, indeed, this rumor pans out, we’ll see how RIM tries to spin that.

The BGR is probably one of the biggest BlackBerry fanboys of all time, so when he says the 9630 aka Niagara is the best. Ever. Then I believe him. Well, he doesn’t say it’s the best BlackBerry of all time, but he might as well have after you read his short but concise first impressions of the latest BlackBerry from RIM.

* Best BlackBerry keyboard. Ever.
* Best BlackBerry speakers. Ever.
* Best screen. Ever. (It looks more like glass than crappy plastic)
* Best size/feel. Ever.

via BGR

So far we know that this BB will run OS 5 and sport quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE. Plus, WiFi b/g/ and maybe even n. No word on launch date or carrier just yet. We’ll hit you up once we have that info – or a better pic.