BlackBerry Bold 9790

The Bold 9790 pairs a QWERTY keyboard with a 2.45-inch touch-screen. There’s 8GB of on-board memory; a microSD slot supporting 40GB more; a 5-megapixel camera with high-definition video recording; 3G, WiFi and GPS; and 6.3 hours of talk time on GSM and 7.4 hours of video playback time. At 115mm by 66mm by 10.5mm, it’s a smidge thicker, wider and taller than the iPhone 4S.

The Bold 9900, touted as RIM’s thinnest BlackBerry to date, also pairs a dedicated QWERTY with a touch-screen, though this one is 2.8 inches. Memory, camera, battery life, connectivity and dimensions are the same as the 9790. It measures 110mm by 60mm by 11.4mm, and all major wireless carriers offer a version.

For the cake-and-eat-it-too crowd, there’s the Torch 9810 slider smartphone, offering again the iconic QWERTY RIM keyboard, but this time hiding behind a more-room-to-move, 3.2-inch touch-screen. Closed, it manages to be smaller than the Bolds in the first two slides, measuring 111 by 62 by 14.6mm. No mention of a microSD slot on the spec sheet.

A rear view of the rather detailed BlackBerry Torch 9810.

The display size rises again here, to 3.7 inches, but the dedicated keypad is traded for an on-screen option. There’s WiFi, 3G and GPS; a 5-megapixel camera; 4GB of on-board memory; and support for a 36GB microSD card. The display is powered by LiquidGraphics technology.

These Curves fairly mimic the looks of their Bold cousins, with dedicated keyboards pairing up with 2.45-inch touch-screens. However, they feature what RIM calls a “Waterfall” design, with curving front and back surfaces designed to feel extra great in the hand.

Here, the Curve’s feel-good design is paired with a 3.2-inch touch-screen; an on-screen keypad; support for an extra 32GB of memory via a microSD card; near-field communication (NFC) technology; an accelerometer and a magnetometer; a 5-megapixel camera with VGA video; and WiFi, GPS and 3G connectivity.

The Curve’s curves are felt in the hand but evade the unstudied eye.