BlackBerry Bold 9900, Torch 9860, Curve 9360 hit AT&T in November
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Two new BlackBerry smartphones -- the Bold 9900 and Torch 9860 -- are headed to AT&T on Sunday, with a third -- the Curve 9360 -- to hit the carrier on Nov. 20.
That’s good news for fans of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry handsets and also a product launch that might otherwise get a bit overshadowed by AT&T’s other news, that its first two 4G LTE phones will go on sale the same day.
AT&T’s first 4G LTE phones, which we reported about Monday, will be the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and the HTC Vivid.
The BlackBerry Bold 9900, which T-Mobile has sold since August, and Torch 9860, which Sprint landed in August as the Torch 9850, will both run on AT&T’s 4G HSPA+ network, which at its fastest is faster than 3G but slower than 4G LTE service.
The Curve 9360 will run on AT&T’s 3G network.
The Bold 9900, which I reviewed on T-Mobile back in August, will be available from AT&T for $199 on a two-year contract -- a much better price than the $299 T-Mobile charged at launch.
The main attraction of the Bold 9900 is its 0.41-inch thickness, making it RIM’s thinnest BlackBerry thus far. But it also has a nice, wide, full keyboard for those who still prefer physical keys to touchscreens. In addition, a smaller 2.8-inch touch screen sits above the keyboard.
The Bold 9900 has a 1.2-gigahertz single-core processor, 768-megabytes of RAM and just 8-gigabytes of storage with a 5-megapixel rear camera that can shoot 720p video.
The Torch 9860 will be the first full touch-screen BlackBerry available on AT&T, though the carrier does also sell the Torch 9810, which runs on AT&T’s 4G HSPA+ network and features a slide-out keyboard and a 3.2-inch touch screen.
The Torch 9860 loses the keyboard and features a 3.7-inch touch screen, and otherwise shares many specs with the Bold 9900, such as processor, RAM, storage and camera. The Torch 9860 will sell for $99 on a two-year contract.
The Curve 9360, which come later in the month, is an update to the pre-existing model with the new feature here being an improved 5-megapixel camera. The Curve 9360 will sell for $30 on a two-year-contract.
All three phones will run the BlackBerry OS 7 operating system, which is the latest software for RIM’s smartphones. However, at some point early next year, RIM is planning on releasing its BBX operating system to tablets and phones, which will allow BlackBerry devices to run apps from Google’s Android OS.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles