Blackberry is releasing a number of second generation handsets that have leaked online earlier. One of these is the BlackBerry Bold 9700 which also gets known as the Bold 2 or Onyx.
After months of speculation on the Blackberry Onyx codename, the new handset is finally appearing in markets even ahead of any official announcement from its maker Research In Motion. T-Mobile has the new handset in the US ready for market release next month and has been priced at $599 SIM-free.
Extreme Makeover
While similar to many Blackberry smartphones earlier released like the Tour 9630 at first glance, then you just might think it’s closer to the Curve 8900 for its smaller size and shape. The problem is that just one about every Blackberry in the QWERTY candybar form look like one another unless inspected up close.
But as a second generation Blackberry handset, the Bold 9700 takes off from its siblings to make up for what they each lack. Like having WiFi where the Tour 9630 is wanting, 3G where the Curve 8900 hasn’t one and the first generation Bold with a mediocre camera. It’s as if RIM just poured onto the Blackberry Bold 9700 all the best features of each and put in the missing ones. The new handset is that good.
New Features
For a time, the online mobile community is speculating on the UMA WiFi capability of the Onyx. It turns out that T-mobile is going to bring that feature to its customers on its HotSpot@Home service where they can get visual voicemail and WiFi voice calls. T-Mobile has also confirmed that its first 3G BlackBerry phone will enjoy the TeleNav GPS Navigator bundled with the Amazon MP3 store access bundled.
Competitive Smartphone Features
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 or Onyx sports a smaller and thinner body than its previous siblings giving a better snug feel in your hands. RIM has yet to make official the release of the Onyx and detailed specifications have yet to be released. Unless debunked by RIM, the specifications being circulated on the net have the following characteristics we look forward to when the new Blackberry handset becomes widely available next month.
- The BlackBerry Bold is a quad-band 2G GSM/GPRS/EDGE and a 3G/UMTS with HSDPA and HSUPA support for an assured high speed surfing and downloading on the internet. It has high speed wireless data connectivity support from WiFi 802.11 b/g.
- The handset comes in gun metal metallic grey with full QWERTY keyboard with a leather-slapped battery cover at the back. It has a newly engineered touch sensitive trackpad found on the Curve 8520 instead of the trackball on many of Blackberry’s other models.
- The processor used in the handset has been speculated on to be a Texas Instrument Tavor running at more than 624 MHz. It runs Blackberry’s proprietary OS 5.0 platform. You also get GPS and Bluetooth 2.0 though it’s not certain whether there’s A2DP support for wireless stereo headsets.
- It’s a common knowledge that corporate users prefer Blackberry handsets and are thus designed with the mobile executive in mind. But that hasn’t deterred RIM from getting popular hardware features onto the handset, like a decent 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera and LED Flash that looks superior to anything Blackberry had in the past.
There’s 256 MB of internal memory that can get up to 16 Gb via a microSD expansion slot. You need to remove the battery cover to insert the card. The handset is powered with a 1550mAh M-S1 battery that was used in the first generation Bold handset and should give the new one about the same talk time and standby times.
Blackberry Bold 9700 Links:
- Blackberry Bold 9700 with Free Gifts
- Blackberry Bold 9700 Pay As You Go
- Blackberry Bold 9700 Reviews
Tags: Blackberry-Bold-9700