Three UK has just launched the BlackBerry Torch 9800 and Curve 3G 9300 on their network, both of which had landed not too long ago on Vodafone UK. The big difference here is that Three is using the occasion to announce their new Pay as You Go BlackBerry plans: for £5/month, subscribers get BlackBerry e-mail, browsing, App World, and BBM, and a £10 add-on gives 3,000 texts, 100 minutes, and 500 MB of data. Otherwise, it’s 25p/minute, 10p/text, 10p/MB, and 15p/voicemail.
The flexibility of pay as you go is great, especially in Europe where it’s so commonplace. Orange UK has been offering PAYG BlackBerry for awhile now, but over here in North America, even prepaid BlackBerry service is still less than ubiquitous – Rogers, Bell, Verizon, and Virgin all have offers. Prepaid is definitely something RIM is interested in, but convincing carriers to give up contracts (either for prepaid or pay as you go) is a tricky proposition.
As for the devices themselves, the Curve 9300 is RIM’s current entry-level smartphone, packing a 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera, QVGA display, 624 MHz processor, 256 MB of RAM, and top-mounted media controls, while the Torch 9800 is their top-of-the-line model, complete with HVGA capacitive touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, 512 MB of RAM, and a fancy new operating system. For a closer look, you can read our BlackBerry Torch 9800 review here, or our BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300 review here.
[via Three]