The BlackBerry Bold 9900 just hit T-Mobile shelves, but wait just a second before you bolt to run and grab one. The handset from RIM is launching for business customers only until August 31, at which point the rest of us can get our BBM on. Of course, BlackBerries are built with the enterprise in mind, so it kind of makes sense that suits would get first dibs. Then again, RIM isn’t necessarily thriving at the moment, so it’s not entirely clear why the phone wouldn’t be available to everyone right from the get go.
The press release failed to mention pricing, but thanks to a leaked document discovered by TmoNews, we believe the Bold will go for $300 on-contract after a $50 mail-in rebate. Despite the fact that this is T-Mobile’s first 4G BlackBerry device, we’re still not sure that its price tag is fitting. We’ve seen a number of phones with better specs launch at lower prices, including T-Mobile’s 8-megapixel camera-packin’, dual-core processor-toutin’ myTouch 4G Slide (which retails at $199 with contract).
However, BlackBerry loyalists will get everything they need here, along with a few improvements. The Bold 9900 will run on a 1.2GHz single-core processor with BlackBerry 7 OS, the latest version of RIM’s platform. It will sport a 2.8-inch VGA capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 640×480 pixels, along with a 5-megapixel rear camera capable of 720p video capture. The Bold 9900 will also support GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity, and pack 8GB of internal memory.