Slogan | Love to be Bold. |
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Availability by country | Sprint Nextel: May 23, 2010 Verizon Wireless: June 3, 2010 (Online) June 10, 2010 (Retail Stores) |
The BlackBerry Bold is a line of smartphones developed by BlackBerry, Ltd.. The family was launched in 2008 with the 9000 Model. In 2009 the form factor was shrunk with the 9700 and the Tour 9630. In 2010 BlackBerry released the 9650 and 9780 refreshed with OS 6. In 2011 came the 9700 and 9788 along with the 9900/9930 series. The 9900/9930 and 9790 are touchscreen smartphones, released in August and November 2011.
The Bold family is known for its distinctive form factor; QWERTY keyboard, typical BlackBerry messaging capabilities with a different keyboard than the Curve series. The Bold series is usually more expensive and has more expensive materials (e.g. leather, soft touch, carbon fiber, metal) than the Curve (plastic, glossy), and has higher specifications. There are two basic form factors with the Bold line: the original larger size on the 9000 and 9900 Series and the "baby bold" form factor the other models have.
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 (codenamed "Onyx") is a high-end mobile phone data device (smartphone) developed by BlackBerry and released on December 18, 2009. While many things including the form factor are similar between this model and the larger models, the difference in the 9700's specifications are as follows:
All the familiar pre-loaded BlackBerry applications are available on the Bold 9700, including but not limited to: WordToGo, PowerPointToGo, BrickBreaker and WordMole. The Bold 9700 also offers BlackBerry Messenger 4.7 but is upgradable to 7.1 in the BlackBerry App World. By upgrading the OS to version 6.0, a user also automatically upgrades to higher versions of applications.
The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is part of the 9600 device series which takes design cues from both its predecessor, the BlackBerry Tour 9630, as well as its GSM variant, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 & the BlackBerry Bold 9780. Changes from the Tour include built-in Wi-Fi, 512MB of onboard storage, and an optical trackpad instead of the trackball. It utilizes a 528 MHz processor, and has a 3.4 MP camera available as an option. The major difference between the 9700/9780 vs the 9650 is that the 9650 is the World Phone Edition that can use CDMA & GSM networks globally; the 9700/9780 only runs on GSM networks.Sprint Nextel announced that they would be the launch carrier for the Bold 9650 shortly after the device was introduced, releasing the phone on May 23, 2010. Verizon Wireless followed closely, releasing the phone exclusively online on June 3, 2010, followed by its retail stores on June 10, 2010. It was released in Canada the week of April 27, 2010.