Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) is launching two new smartphones in the Caribbean the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9790 and BlackBerry® Curve™ 9380. Both smartphones are based on the BlackBerry® 7 operating system (OS).
The new smartphones offer impressively slim and stylish designs with enhanced communications, multimedia, productivity and social connectivity features. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is both powerful and compact, offering users a fully loaded, high performance smartphone with the dual benefits of a high resolution touch display and a highly tactile keyboard. The BlackBerry Curve 9380 is the first-ever BlackBerry Curve smartphone with a touch display. It continues to deliver the powerful social experiences, ease-of-use and smaller handset size that distinguish the BlackBerry Curve family, while also offering Curve users the choice of a larger display and an all-touch design.
“We are very excited to expand the BlackBerry 7 portfolio with the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 smartphones in this region,” said Wes Nicol, Managing Director for the Caribbean at Research In Motion. “Customers in the Caribbean will be thrilled by the faster performance, brilliant touch displays and compact designs available with these two new BlackBerry 7 based models.”
BlackBerry Bold 9790 with Touch Display and Keyboard
True to the BlackBerry Bold brand, the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 smartphone is powerful, full-featured and built with premium materials and finishes. It combines a high-resolution and highly responsive touch display with a highly tactile keyboard and a precise optical trackpad, but comes in a narrow design that is easy to carry and exceptionally comfortable to hold. With the BlackBerry 7 OS and powerful 1 GHz processor, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 delivers fast, smooth performance for browsing the web, running apps, working with documents, and enjoying multimedia. It includes 8 GB of onboard memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32 GB of additional storage.
All-Touch BlackBerry Curve 9380
The finely crafted BlackBerry Curve 9380 is the first all-touch smartphone in the BlackBerry Curve family. It features a highly responsive and brilliant 3.2” high resolution display and comes with preinstalled social networking apps, including BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger), Facebook®, Twitter™ and Social Feeds apps, that offer a fun, easy and smoothly integrated mobile social experience. This compact and stylish handset also features a 5MP camera with flash and video recording, allowing users to easily capture and share their favorite moments with family, friends and colleagues.
Powerful BlackBerry 7 OS
The BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 are both powered by the new BlackBerry 7 OS, which delivers a faster and richer user experience with improved browsing, voice-activated searches, and support for Augmented Reality and NFC (Near Field Communications). It also includes the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, and comes with a variety of personal and productivity apps out of the box.
BlackBerry 7 also introduces an enhanced browser that provides a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience. 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 performance for incredible gaming and video experiences. The popular universal search capability has also been enhanced with support for voice-activated search, so users can simply speak to begin searching their device and the web for information.
The BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 smartphones include built-in support for Augmented Reality and NFC, allowing users to connect with the world around them in fresh new ways. With the Wikitude Augmented Reality application, users can find nearby BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) contacts in real-time, read reviews on restaurants close to them, or get the story behind an interesting landmark and points of interest. NFC enables many new and exciting capabilities, including the ability to make mobile payments, pair accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the smartphone.
BlackBerry 7 includes a number of preinstalled applications and integrated functionality for increasing productivity, and easy sharing and collaboration right out of the box. The Premium version of Documents To Go is included free of charge, offering users powerful document editing features as well as a native PDF document viewer. BlackBerry® Balance is integrated in BlackBerry 7, allowing users to enjoy the full BlackBerry smartphone experience for both work and personal purposes without compromising the IT department’s need for advanced security and IT controls. The Social Feeds (2.0) app has been extended to allow users to post updates to multiple social applications simultaneously and capture updates from news sources (RSS), social apps and instant messaging apps all in one consolidated view. The Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones (2.0) app introduces features like Facebook chat and BBM integration that makes it easier for users to connect with their Facebook friends in real time.
Availability
The BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 smartphones are expected to be available from various carriers in the Caribbean region in early March.
Additional Information
For additional information please visit www.blackberry.com/bb7
Note to Editors:
For devices images and more details, visit the BlackBerry 7 Virtual Press Room at: www.rim.com/newsroom/blackberry7
About Research In Motion
Research In Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless innovation, revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry® solution in 1999. Today, BlackBerry products and services are used by millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. RIM is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: RIMM) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RIM). For more information, visit www.rim.com or www.blackberry.com.
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