eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Research in Motion released two new smartphones based on the BlackBerry 7 operating system-the Bold 9790 and Curve 9380. The Bold 9790 offers a high-resolution touch display and a tactile keyboard. The Curve 9380 is the first-ever Curve smartphone with a touch display.
The Bold 9790 combines a high-resolution and touch display with a tactile keyboard and an optical trackpad, and comes in a narrow design. With the BlackBerry 7 OS and 1GHz processor, the Bold 9790 allows users to browse the Web, run applications, work with documents and play multimedia files. It includes 8GB of onboard memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32GB of additional storage.
The Curve 9380 is the first all-touch smartphone in the Curve family. It features a 3.2-inch high-resolution display and comes with preinstalled social networking applications, including BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), Facebook, Twitter and Social Feeds applications. The handset also features a 5MP camera with flash and video recording. The Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 smartphones will begin to be available from various carriers around the world over the coming weeks, though no pricing information was released. The company said availability dates for specific devices from specific carriers would be announced in conjunction with RIM’s partners.
The smartphones run BlackBerry 7 OS, which includes support for Augmented Reality and near-field communication (NFC). It also includes the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, and comes with a variety of personal and productivity applications. The browser includes a new JIT (just-in-time) JavaScript compiler to improve the load-time speed of Web pages, and it offers optimized HTML5. The universal search capability has also been enhanced with support for voice-activated search.
BlackBerry 7 includes a number of preinstalled applications and integrated functionality for productivity and sharing and collaboration. The Premium version of Documents To Go is included free, offering users document editing features as well as a native PDF viewer. BlackBerry Protect is preloaded, allowing personal data to be backed up and secured in the cloud.
BlackBerry Balance is also integrated in BlackBerry 7, and the Social Feeds (2.0) application has been extended to capture updates from media and favorites all-in-one consolidated view. The Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones (2.0) application introduces features like Facebook chat and BBM integration that make it possible for users to connect with Facebook contacts in real time.
“We are very excited to expand the BlackBerry 7 portfolio with the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380,” said Carlo Chiarello, senior vice president, handheld product management at RIM. “BlackBerry smartphones offer a uniquely refined mobile communications experience that people love and we think many customers will be thrilled by the faster performance, beautiful touch displays and compact designs available with these new BlackBerry 7-based models.”