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BlackBerry 9780 Coming to AT&T?

Categories: AT&T, BlackBerry, Rumors
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 5:58 AM
BlackBerry-9780-ATT

A few shots of the upcoming BlackBerry 9780 have come up, showing AT&T branding loud and proud on the desktop wallpaper, and including support for a wide range of bands in the About screen, meaning this thing could go to just about any GSM carrier. From what we know about the 9780, other than the fact that it looks on the outside exactly like the existing Bold 9700, the unreleased smartphone runs OS 6, has 512 MB of RAM, and a 5 megapixel camera. The new operating system has a lot of cool stuff, like a Webkit browser, updated user interface, and a new social networking/feeds application, but surely there’s more to the BlackBerry 9780 than that.

For awhile it seemed like the 9780 would have a similar relationship to its 9700 predecessor as the 9300 did to the 8530, but since we hear the 9700 is getting OS 6, I can’t help but wonder what the 9780 is bringing to the table. –80 is a new designation for BlackBerrys, so one would think there’s some kind of new feature it’s identifying. There was talk that the next Storm would have portable hotspot capabilities, which would be an awesome addition on other handsets too, but that’s probably wishful thinking talking.

[via Driphter]

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

  • danders

    Unless the 9780 has got some incremental features add, like mobile hotspot, or touch screen (but smaller size), then this is simply a current refresh of the 9700 to fully support OS 6.

    Something isn't being truly said about the 9700's ability to handle OS6 well. Despite RIM's release of the 9700 OS6 build, until ATT truly releases a functional build for their devices, it means nothing. Given that they are coming out with the 9780, it could also mean that ATT may dump on their 9700 owners, as they really never took care of their original 9000 owners with an official OS build to version 5.

    As an 9700 owner, I could care less about OS 6 running on it, but god help us to get the webkit browser on it and keep it a very light OS6 build to accomodate the 9700's limited 256 ram.