First BlackBerry Bolds Released

By Naomi Graychase

August 15, 2008

RIM’s new Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry Bold is now available in Chile and is scheduled to be released in the UK August 16th.

PDAStreet.com reported Thursday that Research In Motion (RIM) has started rolling out its latest Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry model, the BlackBerry Bold, in some international markets.

First up is Chile, where locals can now pick up a Bold from Movistar for 299,990 Chilean pesos (about US$583) with a two-year agreement.

While the BlackBerry Bold is not available in the U.S. yet, it has already been approved by the FCC for release in this country. AT&T plans to offer it to its American customers, but no final release date has been announced.

The Bold is scheduled to be released in the UK next (through Orange) on August 16th, and then Down Under, in Australia–through Telstra–in late September.

RIM’s new smartphone is the first to support tri-band HSDPA 3G wireless data networking on GSM networks worldwide. And, according to reports, the Bold’s 480 x 320-pixel (half-VGA) resolution is the best-looking display ever on a smartphone. In fact, PDAStreet reports that it is supposed to be so good, participants in research groups testing the new BlackBerry kept calling the screen “bold” and “brilliant”–thus the name.

Gimme Wi-Fi

Bold’s case is black with a satin chrome finished frame and leather-like backplate. It measures 4.5 x 2.6 x 0.55 inches and weighs 4.7 ounces. The full-size QWERTY thumb-keyboard is designed to make it easier to usel.

The Bold integrates GPS and Wi-Fi, in addition to multimedia capabilities, and features the processor speed and memory to make the experience worthwhile. It boasts the most powerful processor, 624MHz, ever found in a BlackBerry and includes 128 MB of Flash memory plus 1 GB of on-board storage memory, and a microSDHC memory card slot.

Naomi Graychase is Managing Editor at Wi-Fi Planet.