After years of waiting from BlackBerry users, the ultimate BlackBerry has finally been made official. We broke the story on the next generation BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, and we even spent some one-on-one time with it, but there is nothing like an official announcement, right? As far as specs, it’s everything we reported it would be — 1.2GHz processor, 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen, full QWERTY keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, 8GB of onboard storage, and more. As far as availability, RIM said that the new BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 will be available from “carriers around the world” starting this summer. We’re hearing June / July still. Entire press release is after the break.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RIM Introduces New BlackBerry Bold Smartphones

New BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones are the Thinnest and Most Powerful BlackBerry Smartphones yet, Featuring the Renowned BlackBerry Keyboard Together with a Brilliant Touch Screen and the New BlackBerry 7 OS

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today unveiled two new BlackBerry® BoldTM smartphones. The high-performance BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a stunning and iconic design that integrates an incredibly easy-to-use BlackBerry keyboard with a brilliant, high resolution, capacitive touch screen. These exceptional smartphones are built on a new, performance-driven platform powered by the BlackBerry® 7 operating system and designed to deliver the ultimate in communications, multimedia and productivity for users around the world.

“The new BlackBerry Bold smartphones and BlackBerry 7 OS are inspired by millions of customers around the world who want the ultimate combination of performance, functionality and style,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “These fully-loaded and beautifully crafted smartphones offer a highly refined user experience with blazingly fast performance, a brilliant touch screen and an outstanding typing experience.”

Thin, Sleek, Iconic Design

Distinguished by an iconic design and the industry’s best keyboard, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature the premium materials and finishes that characterize the BlackBerry Bold line. Both models have a lustrous exterior with a brushed stainless steel frame and a high-gloss glass-weave backplate. They are also the thinnest BlackBerry smartphones yet, at only 10.5mm. The quality materials and optimized design of the new BlackBerry Bold smartphones are instantly evident when held in the hand.

Performance-Driven

These BlackBerry Bold smartphones are built on a new performance-driven platform featuring a 1.2 GHz processor, Liquid GraphicsTM touch screen, and support for high speed 4G/HSPA+ wide area wireless networks.

The Liquid Graphics touch screen, a key new feature powered by BlackBerry 7, delivers fast, smooth performance for highly responsive touch-based navigation, web browsing, pictures, video and graphics intensive games*. Offering up to 60 frames-per-second performance with instant UI action/response, Liquid Graphics gives customers a visually rich and immersive experience that’s responsive to the touch. In addition, the smartphones feature brilliant displays with an eye- popping 287 dpi to deliver crisp, stunning visuals.

May 2, 2011The new platform also provides support for 4G networks; the 9900 supports HSPA+ connectivity, and the 9930 supports CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and HSPA+ global roaming on GSM/UMTS networks.

NFC

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones include built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications), a new technology that will enable many rich and exciting experiences. Through NFC, users will be able to, for example, pair the BlackBerry Bold to an accessory or read information such as a web link from smart tags by simply tapping their BlackBerry Bold to an NFC tag (eg. Smart Poster).

Augmented Reality

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a built-in compass (magnetometer) to support location-based services and augmented reality. APIs will allow third party developers to take advantage of the new functionality within their applications. The new smartphones will also include Wikitude, the leader in mobile augmented reality, which overlays contextual information on what the user sees through the smartphone’s camera viewfinder.

HD Video

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones support up to 720p HD video recording and playback. Users can easily share their videos directly from the smartphone or sync videos, as well as music and photos, to their computer using Media Sync in the BlackBerry® Desktop Software.

BlackBerry 7

The BlackBerry 7 OS is designed to power the new performance-driven BlackBerry Bold platform. It provides an easier and faster user experience with improved browsing, voice- activated searches, the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, as well as additional personal and productivity apps out of the box.

The BlackBerry Browser has been significantly enhanced in BlackBerry 7. In addition to the general performance gains of Liquid Graphics, which helps deliver faster rendering and seamless panning and zooming, the BlackBerry 7 browser includes a new JIT (just in time) JavaScript compiler to improve the load time speed of web pages. The new browser also includes support for additional HTML5 elements, such as HTML5 Video.

Building upon the Universal Search feature introduced in BlackBerry 6, BlackBerry 7 expands the capability to include voice-activated search. This new capability makes it even easier and more convenient to search for content on the smartphone or web.

BlackBerry 7 also integrates BlackBerry® BalanceTM, which separates personal content from corporate content on the smartphone, giving users the freedom and flexibility to use the handset for personal email, Facebook®, Twitter®, multimedia, games and other apps while satisfying the very real need for corporate data to be highly secure and manageable. BlackBerry Balance works in conjunction with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0.3, which provides a number of unique IT policy controls such as wiping only corporate data from the handset or blocking work related content and apps from being copied or forwarded to personal contacts.

With BlackBerry 7 on the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, users will also get the full version of Docs To Go® with all “premium” features enabled out-of-the-box so that users can easily work with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the smartphone. Docs To Go also includes a native PDF viewer.

Availability

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones are expected to be available from carriers around the world beginning this summer.

For additional information please visit www.blackberry.com/touchbold

APPENDIX

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Specifications

• 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, approximately 130 g • 2.8″ capacitive touch screen display – VGA (640×480), 287 dpi resolution • Ultra-easy QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad • 1.2 GHz Processor, 768 MB RAM • 8 GB on-board memory, plus microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB cards • NFC technology • 5.0 MP camera, supports 720p HD video recording • Orientation Sensor (Accelerometer), Digital Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity Sensor • Built-in GPS / aGPS • Dual-Band Wi-Fi® – 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz and 802.11 a/n at 5 GHz • Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR support • Wireless Network support:

o 9900:Tri-BandHSPA+,Quad-BandGSM/EDGE o 9930:Dual-BandCDMA/EV-DORev.A,Dual-BandHSPA+,Quad-Band

GSM/EDGE • 1230 mAh removable, rechargeable battery

• BlackBerry 7 OS * Features OpenGL 2.0 support for developers.

About Research In Motion

###

Research In Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless innovation, revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry® solution in 1999. Today, BlackBerry products and services are used by millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. RIM is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: RIMM) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RIM). For more information, visit www.rim.com or www.blackberry.com.

If you’re Canadian and love the thrill of the hunt Boxing Day provides, hate waiting in long lineups on a frosty winter’s eve, are looking for a new smartphone, and aren’t too sure what to make of this WIND Mobile business, then Rogers kinda/sorta has a deal for you. From now until January 18th, the following smartphones are avaiable from $0 to $0.99: BlackBerry Bold 9000 (white), BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220, HTC Magic, LG Eve and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Of course, with such a price there is always a catch and in this particular instance it’s a decision not to be made lightly — a 3-year contract

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We don’t think we need to go over what an insanely huge day today is for Canada, but in case anyone is feeling particularly thick, we’re going to spell it out plan and simple — Rogers is no longer the only HSPA game in Canada. Bell’s 21Mbps HSPA network has at long last gone live. As with any network launch, a few awesome handsets, data cards and a few Canadian-style rip-off plans have come along for the ride. So hit the jump and check out what’s new.

Smartphones

• Apple iPhone 3G – $99.95 / 599.95 (3-year contract / no strings attached)
• Apple iPhone 3GS (16GB) – $199.95 / $699.95
• Apple iPhone 3GS (32GB) – $299.95 / $799.95
• BlackBerry Bold 9700 – $229.95 / $599.95
• BlackBerry Bold 9000 – $249.95 / $599.95
• Samsung Omnia II – $199.95 / $549.95

Non-Smartphones

• LG Xenon – $89.95 / $289.95
• Nokia 2730 – $27.95 / $119.95
• Nokia 6350 – $49.95 / $249.95
• Samsung Impact – $79.95 / $279.95

Data Sticks

• Novatel Wireless U950 – $24.95 / $174.95
• Novatel Wireless U998 – $74.95 / $174.95
• Novatel Wireless X950 – $24.95 / $174.95

SIM Cards

• $0 / $5

As for price plans, not all that much has changed (the $6.95 SAF is staying for now), but Bell did introduce some iPhone specific plans which are as follows:

Combo 45 for iPhone

• 100 anytime local minutes plus 50 bonus local minutes
• Local Fab Five: Unlimited calling & text to and from five local numbers of your choice
• 500 MB of data for personal email, Internet browsing
• Unlimited local nights & weekends (9 p.m. – 7 a.m.)

Combo 55 for iPhone

• 300 anytime local minutes
• Local Fab Five
• 1 GB of data for personal email, Internet browsing
• Unlimited local nights & weekends (9 p.m. – 7 a.m.)

Combo 75 for iPhone

• 400 anytime local minutes
• Nationwide Fab Five: Unlimited calling & text to and from five local numbers of your choice nationwide
• 2 GB of data for personal email, Internet browsing
• Unlimited local nights & weekends (9 p.m. – 7 a.m.)

Combo 95 for iPhone

• 500 anytime local minutes
• Nationwide Fab Five
• 2 GB of data for personal email, Internet browsing
• Unlimited local nights & weekends (9 p.m. – 7 a.m.)

Now to sit and wait for TELUS’ day in the sun to see what, if any, surprises it has in store beyond what we already know.

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While the launch of the BlackBerry Storm2 on Verizon is widely expected to take place on October 28th and the Bold 9700 is so close we can almost taste it, owners of current generation BlackBerry smartphones  — the Pearl Flip 8220/8230, Curve 8330/8350i/8900, Bold 9000, Storm 9500/9530 and Tour 9630 — should be pleased to note that RIM is all set for the launch OS 5.0. Specific dates aren’t easily pinned down as it more or less depends on the device one has and the carrier one is with, but thanks to our connects we know, for example, that Verizon will be dropping for the OS 5.0 for the Storm 9530 tomorrow evening with a fall back date set for Monday. Those that don’t have Desktop Manager set up on either their PC or Mac might want to get everything ready ahead of time as it looks for the most part that OTA software updates will not be made available. Oh well. OS 5.0 is oh so worth the hassle.

We just got a heads up from one of our Northern connects that has to do with Bell, and let’s just say we think Bell subscribers are going to be thrilled with what we have to report. How does Bell’s entire lineup of devices for their HSPA network launch sound? We also grabbed pricing for y’all, too! The following prices are prices with 36 month contracts following by full retail pricing.

Thanks, J!

LG Xenon: $89.95, $289.95

Samsung Impact: $79.95, $279.95

Samsung Omnia 2: $349.95, $549.95

Apple iPhone 3G 8GB $399.95, $599.95 — probably $149 after in store rebates

Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB: $499.95, $699.95 — probably $199 after in store rebates

Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB: $599.95, $799.95 — probably $299 after in store rebates

BlackBerry Bold 9000: $399.95, $599.95 — probably $149-$199 after in store rebates

BlackBerry 9700: $399.95, $599.95 — probably $249 after in store rebates

Nokia 2730: $29.95, $119.95

Nokia 6350: $49.95, $249.95

There’s also 3 Novatel HSPA data cards launching, two will be HSPA+ 21Mbps compatible and one will be HSPA 7.2Mbps compatible.

Even though we here at BGR think that the BlackBerry Bold 9000 is so Summer/Fall 2008 (and even that’s one hell of a stretch considering it was announced that May), it seems that RIM and its partner carriers don’t. Best Buy Canada’s internal inventory system shows that both Bell and Rogers still have plans for the 3G device even though the new hotness is but a few weeks away. From Bell we have the Bold 9000, a rather strange offering considering that it is going to be selling the BlackBerry 9700. Still, we must concede that it makes a bit of sense in that Bell can offer up the 9000 as its mid-end BlackBerry while Rogers is already stuck with positioning EDGE-only devices like the Curve 8900 and Curve 8520 as its more affordable devices. Speaking of Rogers, it is going to be picking up the white BlackBerry Bold — the very same one we’ve been going on about for months — although we’re not entirely clear when it will go on sale. That is to say we don’t know if, just like AT&T, the white Bold will be released to select markets on the 18th of this month. If you’d like to relish in what is surely straight up BlackBerry Bold fire, larger screenshots after the breakage.

Thanks, REMS!

We know that some of you might get tired of hearing us say it, but damn our connects are good. Yesterday at CTIA, RIM reps showcased the BlackBerry Bold in Diddy White. According to Giz, the folks that snapped these pics, the white Bold will make its AT&T debut on October 18th with a 2-year price of $199.99 (some price as existing Bold). Though it will only be available at “select stores”, we don’t think that a lot of people will lose sight of the BlackBerry 9700 to get their hands on this special affair. Hit the jump for one more pic.

We just got a couple shots of some AT&T screens and one of them depicts what appears to be a *gasp* BlackBerry Bold in full Diddy white party garb lounging around AT&T’s systems. We were also sent a shot of the BlackBerry 9700 also prancing around just in case, you know, you thought it didn’t exist. Shot of the 9700 after the jump.

Thanks, sliderocket21!

We wanted to give AT&T’s latest OS for the BlackBerry Bold some time to breathe before announcing it to our readers yet again. Can you blame us? As you may recall, AT&T first released this new OS on August 25th and then pulled it a week later due to a “software issue affecting the interaction between the device and network enhancements being deployed.” Hopefully this time around we’re in it for the long haul and readers who weren’t quick enough to snag 297 last time around can now start enjoying visual voicemail like everyone else. Remember, once you’ve upgraded your OS, you can avoid dealing with CS by activating visual voicemail yourself. Well, Bold owners, what are you waiting for?

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Way back in September we gave the world its first glimpse at the upcoming BlackBerry OS 5.0 running on a Curve 8310, but since that time RIM has continued to keep mum on the subject so we thought that we’d conduct a brief overview of BlackBerry OS 5.0 running on a Bold. So hit the jump and get your OS 5.0 freak on.

If you’re looking for a revolution with this one, we’re afraid that we’re going to have to quash your dreams right now as OS 5.0 is anything but. In fact, the easiest way to describe OS 5.0 is to say that it’s pretty much what you would get if you were to combine the Bold’s OS with that of the Storm. The OS still retains that slick Bold Precision Zen theme, but it has a lot of styling cue’s from the Storm, especially when it comes to drop-down menu options. Despite all of this, we have to say right here and now that we were extremely impressed with how quick and responsive the build that is the focus of today’s sneak-peek really is despite it being a beta that will likely never find its way to the masses. To be completely honest, it totally blew our collective favorite OS 4.6 build for the Bold away in terms of speed. No, it wasn’t without its quirks, but that’s not what we are here to focus on today.

The first notable change takes place on the home screen and has to do with the way that profiles are set, changed and created. Sadly it seems that pressing “F” no longer brings up the profile menu (assuming that Dial From Home Screen is set to “No”), so one has to scroll up on the trackball to select the Profile icon and then click on it. There are now three new options in the pop-up profile menu itself, which allows one to either set ringtones/alerts, set contact alerts or edit profiles. This differs from OS 4.6 in that these three options replaced Advanced making it much simpler to get where one wants to go quickly.

With respect to editing sound profiles themselves, the entire menu system has been reworked to appear as it does on the Storm with collapsible menus. When editing the ring tones themselves, gone are the days of off, mute, low, medium and loud as they have been replaced with a volume scale ranging from silent to 10.

In regards to vibration, one can customize the each alert as they see fit by selecting not only the vibration count (1, 2, 3, 5, 10) but also the vibration length (short, medium, long) as well. We suppose this is a nice added feature but not too many people are going to get all that crazy with it, we imagine.

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Moving on to BlackBerry Messenger, possibly the single greatest thing that the BlackBerry has going for it (it’s so true), nothing groundbreaking has been added and nothing has been taken away, but the entire app has a much more polished look to it.

The actual conversation window is now more stylized and features a graphic for emoticons that can be selected by scrolling to the right of the text entry box. We have to be honest when we say we’re not too sure why this is the case considering that pretty much everyone familiar with BBM lives and dies by pressing the symbol key and hitting a key that corresponds to each individual emoticon, but we guess that with so many people joining the BlackBerry user-base each day RIM wants to make things a bit easier. That, and we have to admit that the new method is a hell of a lot more eye catching.

Let’s face it — if RIM really wants to win over a bunch of consumers in one fell swoop, it has to fix the browser because it just isn’t happening. Regrettably, apart from some stylization and the ability to move around a page while its loading without temporarily freezing the device, it doesn’t seem that the browser functions any differently from what the Bold is currently capable of doing with OS 4.6. Granted we are running a beta version of OS 5.0 and things will be improved when this software is officially launched (so we hope, anyway). We experienced major errors that prohibited the loading of many websites we attempted to visit, but when we did get through we couldn’t help but notice that the browser still isn’t anywhere near where we would like it to be.

Some might be pleased to know that support for Google Gears has been added, but we don’t think that really matters until the browser is a little more… capable.

Seeing as we just mentioned consumers want for robust mobile browsers, it’s fitting that we check in and see what’s up with the Media app. Truth be told, nothing is really new here. The only change that most people will notice moving from OS 4.6 to OS 5.0 is, again, a slight styling change and the awesome new look at the status of media card memory (if applicable), system memory and device memory. It’s pretty neat how it categorizes file types and lists their collective sizes, but at this point the feature is not accurate as it does not account for the space used up by the OS itself. It also seemed to grossly miscalculate the amount of files on our devices. Oh, we almost forgot… When viewing pictures one can finally cycle through photos by scrolling left to right, putting this N and P nonsense to an end at last.

Speaking of files, Files still appears to be the only new app included with OS 5.0 and it looks like it will add network share access to BES users, something that we at BGR are quite excited about.

Well, that does it for our brief summary of OS 5.0 for the BlackBerry Bold. We hope you enjoyed it and are all fired up for it to become official next month at WES 2009. By then, of course, we hope a few surprises are thrown in and for the sake of BlackBerry users’ sanity, we really hope the browser is beefed up. Please.

In the market for a new AT&T smartphone? Don’t care if it’s refurbished? The BlackBerry Bold is about as good as it gets from AT&T right now, and those of you who haven’t pulled the trigger yet are in for a treat. How does free sound? Regularly priced at $299.99 new and $199.99 refurbished, this is pretty much a steal as long as a new 2-year contract doesn’t scare you off. It looks like the free deal is only good online and only for today, so get a move on!

Thanks, Chris!

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It looks like four bands of HSPA is too much for a BlackBerry to handle as Japanese carrier DoCoMo has suspended all sales of the Bold due to overheating issues. Since its February 20th launch, DoCoMo has sold approximately 4,000 Bolds but after receiving more than 30 complaints about overheating keypads while charging, DoCoMo decided it was best to halt sales while RIM investigates the matter. RIM is being quite tight-lipped on the matter and would only comment with, “This issue appears to be specifically limited to the BlackBerry Bold devices sold in Japan since last week and sales of BlackBerry Bold devices in other countries are unaffected by this matter.” RIM went on to clarify that faulty batteries are not to blame. For those of you scoring at home, this brings the number of carriers that have suspended sales of the Bold up to two thus far. Anyone taking bets on who might be the third?

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According to a report issued this morning, European carrier Orange is considering dropping the Bold from its lineup after being unable to solve “ongoing technical issues.” Orange employees familiar with the matter have said the Bold has the highest rate of return in its category, something which is not sitting well with the higher-ups due to a previous issue with the Bold. Back in October, Orange halted sales of the Bold due to a high incidence of dropped calls, crashes and poor overall performance. After a more stable OS release from RIM however, sales of the Bold resumed. If Orange were to pull the Bold for the second time it would most likely remain sidelined for the duration of its market life which would deal a huge blow to RIM. To compound matters, this move would give a great deal of additional publicity to the woes of RIM’s latest flagship products, the Bold and the Storm. For the time being Orange has declined to comment on the matter, as was the company’s position before the Bold was pulled last year.

At the time of the first recall, every Bold on the Orange network was running OS 4.6.0.126, a very buggy release indeed. Since Orange reinstated the Bold however, it moved to OS 4.6.0.162 – also not the the most usable version issued in recent history. In all fairness to RIM and Orange customers, perhaps Orange should hurry up and release a new OS build like 4.6.0.190 or beyond (though many are a severe step backwards) as several other carriers have done.

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While not everyone has the stomach to jump back into the market quite yet, those who still enjoy dabbling from time to time will be happy to learn that E*trade has finally made the official announcement we’ve been waiting for. Its mobile banking and trading application, E*trade Mobile Pro, is finally ready to roll on the BlackBerry Bold. That might sound familiar but as it turns out, certain firmware versions on the Bold were accidentally able to download a previous build. It worked pretty well for us though it wasn’t the prettiest app to look at since it was definitely not optimized for the Bold’s sizable display. This new version trumps it 50 times over though – it actually fits the screen properly, it’s sexy and it has tons more functionality. Oddly, both the old and new versions carry the same version number, 1.1.3, but the new build is most definitely optimized for the Bold where as the old one could barely be seen without a microscope. As part of the release celebration, E*trade also partnered with Wirefly to offer account holders a new Bold for $99 with a 2-year contract. Not a bad deal at $50 off Wirefly’s current Bold pricing. Hit the jump for a handful of screen shots.

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