Following up on Verizon and Sprint, T-Mobile has announced the specifics of their BlackBerry Bold 9900 launch. The price is set at $299.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year contract. Business pre-orders are available today, but should be hitting shelves on August 31. Not only is that price point ridiculously high, but T-Mobile doesn’t mention NFC anywhere in their press release, which more or less confirms that they’ve positioned a software block for the feature just like Verizon and AT&T.
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is otherwise a pretty sharp phone, featuring a crisp 360 x 480 touchscreen, a big, comfortable QWERTY keyboard, and a zippy 1.2 GHz processor with 768 MB of backup. The 5 megapixel camera can handle 720p video recording with LED flash and image stabilization, though the focus mechanism leaves something to be desired. The new operating system offers a few new tricks, like voice-activated universal search, but missing some industry standard features, like Wi-Fi hotspot and DLNA home media sharing. Still, the phone feels very nice in the hand, thanks in no small part to the metal band around the outside. We’ve got some hands-on time over here, if you want to take a closer look.
This might be the only GSM Bold 9900 in the U.S. for awhile, as AT&T isn’t expected to launch their version until November. If you’re on an AT&T contract though, you could always snag one from Telus, or any of the other major Canadian carriers. Speaking of which, T-Mobile’s launch of the BlackBerry 9900 is a good sign for the AWS carriers up here, Wind Mobile and Mobilicity, who are offering some pretty awesome back-to-school plans.
There’s no sign of the 9900 in T-Mobile’s online store just yet, but keep your eyes peeled – it should be popping up soon enough.