By Claire Reilly
Canadian manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) has announced that it will be launching two new BlackBerry smartphones “over the coming weeks” – the BlackBerry Bold 9790 and the Curve 9380. Both devices will utilise the BlackBerry 7 operating system, and will fall into two pre-existing product ranges.
Speaking about the new releases, RIM’s senior vice president of handheld product management, Carlo Chiarello, was characteristically effusive in his praise.
“We are very excited to expand the BlackBerry 7 portfolio with the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380,” said Chiarello. “BlackBerry smartphones offer a uniquely refined mobile communications experience that people love and we think many customers will be thrilled by the faster performance, beautiful touch displays and compact designs available with these new BlackBerry 7 based models.”
The Bold 9790 will fall into line with the traditional BlackBerry aesthetic, offering a full QWERTY keyboard as well as a touch display. The device features a 1 GHz processor, an optical trackpad and 8GB of onboard memory which can be expanded to 32GB thanks to the built-in memory card slot.
“The BlackBerry Bold 9790 delivers fast, smooth performance for browsing the web, running apps, working with documents, and enjoying multimedia,” said a RIM spokesperson. “The smartphone is powerful, full-featured and built with premium materials and finishes…[and it] comes in a narrow design that is easy to carry and exceptionally comfortable to hold.”
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Unlike the Bold, the new Curve 9380 is the first all-touch smartphone in BlackBerry’s Curve range, with a high-resolution 3.2-inch display. It is preloaded with BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), Facebook, Twitter and Social Feed apps, and offers a 5-megapixel camera with flash and video recording.
According to the company, the smartphones “will begin to be available from various carriers around the world over the coming weeks [and] availability dates for specific devices from specific carriers will be announced in conjunction with RIM’s partners”.
Current.com.au contacted RIM for comment on the new devices, but a spokesperson for the company said information on local availability was still under wraps.
The BlackBerry Bold 9790.
The all-touch BlackBerry Curve 9380.