That blocky-looking BlackBerry Bold we saw last month has just been officially announced in India. As suspected, it’s a luxury do-over of the 9900, branded by Porsche. Aside from having a unique PIN starting 2AA, a custom-sculpted exterior, and an exclusive UI theme, the BlackBerry P’9981 has the same 5 megapixel camera without autofocus, 2.8-inch 640 x 480 touchscreen, OS 7, and 1.2 GHz processor.
Porsche hasn’t pumped out a phone in awhile, and even then, their handsets tended to be feature phones with an excessive amount of attention put into the casing. While the Bold 9900 certainly isn’t the top-of-the-line in the smartphone world, it’s certainly passable, and likely a familiar face for the high rollers that tend to buy luxury phones. We’ve seen a few gaudy after-market BlackBerry devices in the past, but this is the first time we’ve seen RIM partner up with a big-name brand to produce a luxury smartphone. Seeing as part of BlackBerry’s old appeal was that it was the phone of the rich and powerful, maybe it’s a scene RIM will continue to dabble in (even if us pleebs think these things looks horrible).
Production of the BlackBerry P’9981 will be “restricted” rather than limited edition, whatever that means, and will be hitting Porsche Design stores before the end of the year for roughly $US 2000. You can find more information at their online store, or check out RIM’s landing page.
[via bbin]