BlackBerry face-off with the iPhone this summer?

Supposed details of Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold – also known as the 9000 series – have been leaking for some time, fuelling much speculation as to it's chances against the similarly much rumoured new Apple iPhone. Recently RIM confirmed the new model's feature set, revealing that it is more a long needed upgrade to the existing top-of-the-line BlackBerry rather than a radical re-design. In all the hype surrounding the brand it is perhaps overlooked, but the new phone will be joining a range of eighteen other models that bear the BlackBerry name.

The BlackBerry Bold has a 624 MHz mobile processor, 128 MB Flash RAM, 1 GB of internal memory plus support for microSD/SDHC memory cards. The color LCD has a 480 by 320 resolution. There is a 2 Mpixel camera with a built-in flash, 5x digital zoom and a video recording function.

Other features include:

• Quad-band Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) and tri-band High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)
• Integrated Global Positioning System (GPS)
• Built-in Wi-Fi a/b/g
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Media player with 11 built-in equalizer pre-sets
• Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD)

The removable / rechargeable 1500 mAhr battery offers around 5 hours normal use and 13 days standby time.

Although RIM say it is releasing the new phone “worldwide” and the BlackBerry Bold features on the UK/European BlackBerry website, as yet there is no specific mention of a UK release and no UK pricing. However some UK online retailers are already offering a pre-order on the phone.

(Terry Relph-Knight)

(trk)