Following closely behind the rumoured launch date of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9810 on Telus, Bell may be launching the OS 7 smartphones on August 16, according to some leaked internal documents. Bell is also set to carry the Torch 9860 which was officially announced today, but there’s no date for that one included. If it will be following the Telus lead, however, we can expect it around August 22. Rogers may beat them both to the punch, as we’ve heard their tentative launch date is August 9.
The Bold 9900 will be rocking the classic QWERTY candybar form factor, except unlike previous BlackBerry devices, it’ll actually have some respectable horsepower under the hood. Just like the Torch 9810, it’ll have a 1.2 GHz processor, 768 MB of RAM, a magnetic compass for augmented reality apps, and support mobile hotspot. The 9810’s layout looks pretty much identical to the original Torch launched last year, minus the improved 640 x 480 touchscreen. The Bold’s screen is smaller at 2.8 inches, but crams in just as many pixels.
Since Bell and Telus share an HSPA network, it’s not surprising to see them launching the new BlackBerry devices at the same time. Although they’re largely focused on GSM these days, we can’t forget that they started out with CDMA, and still have that infrastructure in place. While it’s not looking like any of the upcoming RIM devices are going to be CDMA exclusives that Bell or Telus could lord over Rogers or the other guys, it’s a good option for them to have. Even beyond BlackBerry, there are some great Verizon exclusives that can only find their way up here through Bell and Telus. Similarly, the little guys like Mobilicity and Wind are uniquely in a position to pick up phones from T-Mobile, since they also run on AWS.
I’ll be getting my grubby thumbs on the Torch 9810 tonight, so stick around for some hands-on video. Any Canadians out there itching to try out the new BlackBerry lineup?
[via CB]