You might have heard of the RIM BlackBerry 9000, but RIM has officially named the smartphone the BlackBerry Bold.  In fact, it’s bold in more ways than one.  The gorgeous display makes it very bold, but it also represents a bold shift for the company.  With the release of the Apple iPhone 3G this summer, Apple saw great success and had record breaking sales.  RIM had to bring its A-game to the table with its next smartphone and after looking this thing over, they brought just that.

   (Credit:  BlackBerry.com) 

BlackBerry Bold and Beautiful

An article on cnet.com explained that the device gets its name from its screen.  The Bold features a half-VGA (480×320 pixel resolution) and a 65,000 color display.  During testing, research group participants continually called the screen “bold,” hence the BlackBerry Bold was born.  The Bold is equipped with a stunning display that shows a great video without any pixelation that you typically get.

It’s 4.5 inches tall by 2.6 inches wides, weighing a mere 4.7 ounces, the BlackBerry Bold is as sleek as ever.  This phone also offers a QWERTY keyboard and endless wireless options.  The wireless options include the quad-ban (GSM 850/900/1800/1900), but the best part about this smartphone is the HSPDA/UMTS (850/1900/2100) support.  This is a first for BlackBerry to introduce this support, and is it ever good to have.

Here are some more features that the BlackBerry Bold offers:

• Improved Web browser, option to view pages in full desktop HTML
• Navigate pages with a trackball, which acts like a mouse cursor
•  2-megapixel camera and video recording capabilities (up to 5x zoom)
• Media player supports MP3, WMA, AAC, DivX4, and WMV3 files
• Great speakers with a 3.5mm headphone jack
• Great BlackBerry interface with Dataviz’s Documents to Go suite, for viewing and editing

Get Bold with BlackBerry Bold … in September

Yes that’s right.  AT&T will be the primary provider for the BlackBerry Bold with the expected release to be September 1, 2008.  BlackBerry has always put out great devices and business users have had a special relationship with BlackBerry since they are very user friendly and e-mail access is outstanding.  With the release of the Apple iPhone 3G in early July, it is going to be interesting to see how this might affect BlackBerry sales in September.  Some financial analysts are holding strong for BlackBerry and recommending to buy into the stock now as the prices will rise right up to the release date.  Only time will tell, but until then, we’re going to be bold.