RIM gets Bold with new BlackBerry and $150m developer fund

After months of rumors, RIM has come clean with their latest and greatest device. The BlackBerry 9000 as it were is officially announced as the BlackBerry Bold. There's no question, this is the most advanced and feature-packed 'Berry to date: tri-band HSDPA, GPS, WiFi, a 624 MHz processor, 2-megapixel camera, 1 GB of storage memory, a microSD/SDHC slot and a 480 x 320 screen. Of course, the famous BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard and trackball are there as well. All in all, this is quite a powerful device from RIM that will be available this summer; no price as of yet. Taking a cue from the iPhone SDK program, RIM has also set up a $150 million developer fund for mobile application developers. Maybe I need to blog less and learn to develop more... ;)

James has enjoyed his BlackBerry for the past year, but I have yet to experience one of the newer models, so I may need to get my hands on this when it hits the stores. It will be interesting to compare the Bold to the anticipated 3G iPhone, no?

Comments

[Shawn J. Roberts]

I am looking at either the Bold or the 3G iPhone as my next phone. I have used both the Curve (8300) and the iPhone. The decisive factor for me will likely be that the Bold has a physical keypad while the iPhone does not. When I used the iPhone I kept thinking that I would get used to the virtual keypad and would eventually be able to type as fast as on the Curve. It did not happen.