UPDATE: The BlackBerry Porsche P’9981 was revealed in Dubai today, and it definitely doesn’t look like the 9790.

RIM may be pinning their hopes on BBX, but that doesn’t mean they’re done churning out classic BlackBerrys. Case in point: the revamped Bold 9790 has been revealed in a new set of photos that doesn’t look like someone took them during an earthquake.

The 9790′s existence isn’t exactly a secret, but these images (courtesy of @moha87_) represent the most up-to-date look at what RIM is working on behind closed doors. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the new Bold (on the left) sports a funky new “home row” of keys that already seem to have polarized the BlackBerry fanbase.

The rest of the improvements are a bit harder to discern: a 2.44-inch touch display sits up front, and a 5-megapixel camera rests on the back. It runs the BlackBerry 7 OS (naturally), and finally moves the charging port to the bottom of the device. Anecdotal evidence also reveals that it feels “lighter and slimmer” than the current Bold 9700.

Interestingly, the Twitter account belongs to a gentleman named Mohammad Al Bastaki who just happens to live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Could it be a simple coincidence that RIM and Porsche Design are holding an event tomorrow in that very city to show off their exclusive new collaboration? Maybe — it doesn’t exactly scream Porsche, but I’m half-hoping that this design takes the stage instead of the angular nightmare we saw last time.

Hey, you! Owner of a BlackBerry Bold 9650 or Curve 3G on Verizon! Are you ready to join an exclusive group of energetic and intelligent individuals looking to explore the furthest reaches of the Galaxy?

That’s cool, but you’re going to have to settle for an operating system update. Verizon has just announced their plans to give the two aforementioned handsets the BlackBerry OS 6.0 upgrade treatment later tonight. You’ll have a brand new UI to explore, a shiny new web browser to surf with, and things like a much improved camera app and aggregated social feeds to keep you entertained.

Expect the over-the-air updates to start trickling out at 8 PM Eastern. Want to make sure you get yours the second it goes live? Try the BlackBerry Desktop Manager application; that tends to do the trick.

[Via Phonescoop]

It seems like only yesterday that T-Mobile BlackBerry users were being treated to the Curve 8900 when they were feeling Bold 9000 envy. But alas, the glory would be short lived as it has reached the end of its life cycle. We’re sad to see it go, but we won’t miss it too much. After all, the trackpad equipped Curve 8520 and Bold 9700 are so attractively priced right now that the 8900 was relegated to being the small fish in a big pond. So farewell! Thou art too dear for our possessing.

[Via T-Mobile]

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.

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.

According to a leaked internal memo, Orange has pulled the BlackBerry Bold from the shelves due to “reports of software issues”.

Originally expected to hit AT&T here in the states months ago, the Bold has faced delay after delay. Could these issues be the reason for the endless postponement?

The full text of the leaked memo:

Internal Orange Statement on the Bold:”Following reports of software issues with the BlackBerry Bold handset across a variety of mobile operators, Orange has decided to act in the interest of its customers by suspending shipments of the device in the UK. We are currently awaiting feed back from RIM as to when an industry wide fix for these issues will be in place, and expect this suspension to be an interim measure.We apologise for any inconvenience this issue may cause you.”next steps BlackBerry/RIM are doing everything they can to resolve this issue and will be completing full testing and validation to ensure future handsets do not have any quality issues. This may take a couple of weeks so it’s up to us to do what’s best for our customers.

[Via MobileTechAddicts via MobilityToday]

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.

For the sake of making sure employees are up to speed on the coming-any-day-now BlackBerry Bold (and likely as an excuse to booze and schmooze), AT&T is throwing a series of parties for employees in a few major cities around the country. The invite doesn’t shed any information we’re not already well aware of, but worthy of some note is the date of the final party: October 30th. It’s not likely AT&T would bother holding these things after the handset is already out and about on their shelves, so this further cements the early November launch.

The invite also says “Mingle, eat, relax and enjoy as you discover What Makes You Bold.” You know what makes AT&T Bold? Cheesy marketing videos. That’s the kind of kitsch that only internal marketing videos can provide.

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.

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.

For now, there doesn’t seem to be a way to access playlists beyond what’s next and what was recently heard. While this might make sense for streaming radio stations, it should probably be an integrated feature if a station is living in the cache.

Overall, the service worked fine when not trying to do too much. Music was played, music was listened too. Switching between stations seemed to me a little slow, but the ability to edit playlists within a station means you might not be flipping around the dial so much. Control was pretty easy and intuitive, with basic menu commands available in a pop up menu.

The app looked best to me on the new Pearl Flip 8220, due to its vertical screen. The differences between the Bold and Curve were minimal. That’s the Bold up there on top. The Curve is below, and the new Pearl Flip below that.

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.