We’re still a day away from BlackBerry World but it seems folks over at RIM jumped the gun by officially confirming the new BlackBerry Bold on the website. The listing is now yanked but not before eagle-eyed readers took a screenshot. BGR who leaked the very first images of this new Bold device reckons Bold Touch will be the only new device to be unveiled at BlackBerry World along with the unveiling of BlackBerry OS 7.

[BGR via FoneArena]

RIM is really having a hard time keeping their upcoming phones under wraps. Now BlackBerry Bold Touch has got the hands-on treatment, thanks to BGR. Bold Touch was leaked couple of months back and is said to give best of both worlds with an integrated physical QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen display.

The site says renders don’t do justice as the phone “looks better in person” and has a good solid build quality. Other things found in this hands-on are the responsive touchscreen with the ubiquitous BlackBerry keyboard and a new battery that won’t impact the battery life while using the touchscreen interface.

The phone is expected to go official at BlackBerry World in May with a global release slated for June-July.

[Via BGR]

RIM upgraded its Bold line with an all new Bold 9780. At first glance, you’d miss the Bold 9780 as the Bold 9700 but it comes with one major difference – the Blackberry OS 6. The new Bold 9780 comes with RIM’s new eye pleasing OS, making it first the non-touchscreen Blackberry phone to run the BB OS 6. But does it manage to do the justice? We try to find out.

You really need to be a Blackberry enthusiast to find out the difference amongst various Blackberry models and this holds true for the Bold line as well. As I said 9780 is designed similarly to its predecessor 9700 that looks stylish with its glossy front and a faux-leather finish at the back. The front area is taken up by a nice screen with the trackball, menu buttons and QWERTY keyboard taking the other half. The back is rather clean with the faux-leather battery cover and camera lens and LED flash taking the rest of the area. On the sides are two volume keys and a camera shutter/shortcut. You can even customize the camera and voice dialing buttons as per your desired function. The unlock key and the mute key are housed on top panel of the phone.

Overall, the phone looks good, has a pretty good build quality and perfectly matched to suit-clad consumers. The keys on the QWERTY keypad are well spaced and tapering but sometimes gave a squeaking feedback after about couple of weeks of its usage.

The 480×360 pixel screen is crisp and is good under sunlight as well. We do hope that the guys at RIM provide a touch-screen in this kind of form-factor as the BB OS 6.0 really complements the touch-screen.

On the connectivity front the Bold 9780 comes with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS. RIM has also doubled the internal flash memory from the 256MB found in the 9700 to 512MB. Double memory means a user can install more apps into his phones as compared to 9700. Installing apps on SD card is still forbidden, which is a drawback considering it allows expanding memory to up to 32GB.

Just like other Blackberries, 9780 is also the victim of slow boot-up time. It takes forever to boot but thankfully, once its past through this, everything else is a breeze. The phone is responsive throughout and takes little time to execute a command.

Coming on to BB 9780’s biggest change – the OS, I would say it’s a welcome addition. Of course, the OS has a lot to catch to match with iOS or Android, the UI is certainly a breather from the aging BB 5 OS. However, when you compare the experience of the BB OS 6 from Torch 9800 and 9780, it feels that BB OS 6 is more optimized and user friendly to touch-based devices.

Other new features BB OS 6 boasts are a webkit browser, Social Feeds and universal search. The webkit browser is a really good addition that also supports tabbed browsing whereas Social Feeds brings all the social contacts under one roof. Universal Search allows users to search anything on their Blackberry or web, right from the homescreen.

The back houses 5-megapixel shooter, an upgrade from 3.2-inch from Bold 9700. Picture quality is good and the camera can capture pictures at a resolution of up to 2592×1944 pixels but it is the video where the camera lacks. It is capable of recording at only 640×480 resolution, which is kind of underwhelming for a high-end smartphone considering other phones in the same price range are capable of delivering HD quality video.

In a nutshell, if you are already using the Blackberry Bold 9700 and are happy with its performance, there’s not much of an incentive. However, the new OS and the memory bump are few things that matter as a Blackberry user, you can give the new Bold a try or go for Torch 9800 which feels more user friendly with BB OS 6.

The Bold 9780 retails for Rs.27,990 and we feel is steep for a phone that can be termed as evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Research in Motion has unveiled the newest Bold device in the Indian market. The Blackberry Bold 9780 is the first Bold device to run Blackberry OS 6 and comes with the same premium design the Bold range boasts.

The Bold 9780 features worldwide 3G support, 480×360 resolution display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5MP camera with autofocus, image stabilization and flash, 512MB flash memory, GPS, geo-tagging, optical trackpad, microSD card slot (up to 32GB) and 1500mAh battery.

Since the phone has BB OS 6, you’d also find Social Feed, webkit browser with tabs support, Universal Search and more.

The phone will retail for Rs.27,990.

Research in Motion has confirmed which older devices will get the new software bump. Blackberry Bold 9700, Bold 9650 and Pearl 3G have been confirmed to get an upgrade to Blackberry 6 in the coming months. Torch and all future Blackberry devices will obviously run the new OS.

Blackberry 6 is RIM’s answer to the new touch-friendly user interface consumers have gotten accustomed to. The OS offers visual and smooth interface allowing users to do more. There are up to 5 customizable home screens, context-sensitive Action Menus, webkit-based browser giving full HTML rendering and tabbed window support, unified social feed and enhanced multimedia experience like media sync support with iTunes, Windows Media Player, Wi-Fi music sync and universal search.

The alleged big brother of Blackberry Bold 9700 has been lurking in the wild for quite a while but it’s the first time the QWERTY-toting device has been caught in a video. Driphter managed to get hold of a Bold 9780 and capture the phone on video running Blackberry OS 6.

Although the Blackberry OS 6 build is a pre-released version, 9780 seemed to handle it pretty well, thanks to the included 512MB RAM but otherwise, the phone is supposed to have the same innards like 9700.

[Driphter via Gizmodo]

RIM has made today’s leaked Blackberry devices official. As said before, there are no big surprises except for the fact that Pearl 3G – which in fact is the smallest Blackberry smartphone yet – has Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and will come in two variants – one with a 20-key condensed QWERTY keyboard (9100) and another one with 14-key traditional alphanumeric keypad (9105).

To reiterate, Bold 9650 is a CDMA phone that also supports GSM/UMTS networks. Other features include a 2.44-inch display, 3.2MP camera, full HTML browser, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD card slot and 1400mAh battery capable of delivering of up to 5 hours of talk time on CDMA. It will arrive in United States in May.

Pearl 3G on the other hand tries to give the smartphone experience in a small form factor. It features a 624MHz CPU with 256MB RAM, optical trackpad, 3.2MP camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, microSD card slot and 1150mAh battery giving up to 5.5 hours of talk time on 3G network. It will be launched in May.

Research in Motion today announced the Bold 9700 smartphone for the Indian market. Taking over the reigns from Bold 9000 in India, the Bold 9700 offers top-of-the-line features in an attractive and rich design. Coming in a dark chrome frame and leatherette back, Bold 9700 supports global GSM and 3G bands, has a fast 624MHz processor and 256MB internal flash storage.

The phone also features a vivid 2.44-inch display supporting 480×360 resolution, 3.2MP camera, full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, DivX/partial Xvid support, 3.5mm audio jack and microSD card slot supporting up to 16GB.

The phone will be available at major retailers as well as operators starting from today at a price of Rs. 31,990 excluding VAT.

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RIM has at last let the cat out of the bag by unveiling Bold 9700 aka Onyx. Blackberry Bold 9700 offers high-end performance with support for tri-band 3G HSDPA / quad-band GSM networks, Wi-Fi and a powerful 624MHz processor along with 256MB of flash memory.

Bold 9700 hosts a 2.44-inch vivid light-sensing display (480×360), full QWERTY, trackpad, GPS, 3.2MP auto focus camera with flash, 3.5mm headset jack, microSD card slot (up to 32GB) and access to Blackberry App World.

US will get the device via T-Mobile and AT&T while rest of the world can expect local carriers to launch it by November. AT&T will be selling the device for $199.99.

Blackberry Bold 9700
T-Mobile Bold 9700
AT&T Bold 9700
[Via Press Release]

We’ve already seen a live picture of Onyx in a T-Mobile garb and now an image has appeared on the web showing a nicely touched up press photo. As you can see, Onyx too, will ditch the trackball in lieu of trackpad which was first seen on Curve 8520.

The T-Mobile Onyx features a high-gloss finish with leather back and brings 3G, Wi-Fi with support for HotSpot@Home, GPS, 3.2MP camera and pre-installed Amazon MP3 store.

The exact launch date is not known but is expected to come out by the end of this year, mostly November.

[Via CIO]