Rogers and Telus launched their refreshed BlackBerry Bolds this week, and Bell isn’t one to be left out of the party. Today the device hit shelves with a $124.95 pricetag on a three-year contract. That pricing puts it square in between Rogers’ $149.99 and Telus’ $99.99. Bell’s little minion, Virgin Mobile, will also be picking it up in the near future for those who want to put the handset cost on a tab.
The BlackBerry Bold 9780 is a refresh of the 9700, including 512 MB of RAM instead of 256 MB, a 5 megapixel camera instead of 3.2 megapixels, and the operating system is now 6.0, complete with WebKit browser, universal search, and a bevvy of UI upgrades. The 9700 will be getting the same features soon enough. Other specs, like the HVGA display, Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, and 624 MHz processor are exactly the same.
Now that the new Bold has found its way across all three major Canadian carriers, I have to wonder why there’s such difference in pricing. $50 between Rogers and Telus is significant, but the fact that Bell lands precisely between the two strikes me as fishy for some reason. Whatever the reason, it can’t be that big of a deal, since the 9780 is just going to quietly replace the 9700 and not really attract any new customers – anyone going in for a traditional BlackBerry would have just got the old Bold instead.
Anyway, the BlackBerry 9780 is over here in the Bell store, if that’s your bag.
[via MobileSyrup]