RIM today unveiled the Curve 9380, Torch 9810, Torch 9860, Bold 9790 and a Pure White version of the 9900. All phones run on the new Blackberry 7 operating system which offers faster web browsing and a richer user experience including voice-activated searches and support for Augmented Reality.
The Blackberry Curve 9380 is the first in the Curve line that is an all-touch screen. Without the physical keyboard, the screen size is increased to 3.2 inches. The phone includes a 5MP camera with flash and is capable of recording video. The Curve 9380 comes with social apps pre-installed that let you communicate with your friends in BBM, Twitter, and Facebook.
The Blackberry Bold 9790 gives you a touch display as well as a physical keyboard and optical trackpad. The Bold 9790 is also a powerful device with its 1GHz processor and combined with Blackberry 7 OS, gives you a smooth user interface with performance to match. The Bold 9790 is also great as a portable media device with its powerful specs and its 8GB embedded storage. If that isn’t enough, the 9790 has a microSD slot which can support up to 32GB of additional storage.
The Blackberry Torch 9810 gives you the best of both worlds. While the Bold 9790 has a touch screen display, some might see the small display as a limiting factor. The 9810 gives you the whole face of the phone for its touch display giving you 3.2” to work with. Underneath the display is a slide-out physical keyboard for those that are already used to Blackberry’s keyboard layout. This upgrade to the 9800 offers faster and smoother performance than its predecessor.
The Blackberry Torch 9860 ditches the slide-out physical keyboard but delivers a bigger touch display at 3.7 inches. This form factors aggressively competes with most smartphone designs in terms of size. With its big display, the 9860 is optimized for web browsing as well as view media such as photos and even video as well as gaming.
The Blackberry Bold 9900 is the thinnest Blackberry to date at 10.5mm. And now, the phone is now in Pure White that is definitely a plus in terms of style. The white 9900 doesn’t skimp on materials as it uses premium materials such as brushed stainless steel frame which enhances its style. Style is nothing without performance. With its 1.2GHz processor matted to the Blackberry 7 OS, the Bold 9900 offers faster performance and smooth user interface.
RIM is also banking on NFC or Near Field Communication. This allows for short distance communication between devices. One example of this is the digital wallet experience. Without the need to take out your wallet, all you need to do is tap your NFC-enabled Blackberry smartphone to a kiosk and the transaction is automatically between the establishment and your phone. Another example is you can tap one NFC-enabled phone to another and data such as contact information or even media files are transferred.
Of the launched devices, the Curve 9380, Bold 9790, and the Bold 9900 are equipped with NFC.
The smartphones will be available on the 13th of this month through local carriers and authorized retailers. The Blackberry Curve 9380 will retail for PhP16,990, the Bold 9790 for PhP22,890, Torch 9860 for PhP24,690, the Torch 9810 for PhP28,590, and the Pure White Bold 9900 for PhP31,690.
