BlackBerry launches 5 new 7 OS smartphones

MANILA, Philippines - Research In Motion (RIM) announced early this week the launch of five new BlackBerry smartphone models based on the BlackBerry 7 Operating System (OS) in the Philippines.

The latest additions to the BlackBerry 7 product lineup are BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9380, BlackBerry Torch 9810, BlackBerry Torch 9860, and BlackBerry Bold 9900 in Pure White.

Availability of the five new smartphone models from carriers and authorized retail channels in the Philippines began yesterday. “The new BlackBerry 7-based smartphones offer customers a truly outstanding mix of communications, multimedia, productivity and social connectivity features,” said Hastings Singh, RIM vice president for South Asia.

“We are excited to expand the BlackBerry 7 portfolio with the launch of five new models, providing Philippine customers with a broader selection of handsets to match their lifestyle,” he added.

True to the BlackBerry Bold brand, the new Bold 9790 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 8GB of onboard memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32GB of additional storage.

The finely crafted BlackBerry Curve 9380, meanwhile, is the first touch-screen smartphone in the BlackBerry Curve family.

It features a highly responsive and brilliant 3.2-inch 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 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.

The third new Blackberry smartphone builds on the popular design of the BlackBerry Torch 9800. The new BlackBerry Torch 9810 is faster and more fluid with high-performance hardware features and the new BlackBerry 7 OS delivering an enhanced multimedia experience.

It features a large 3.2-inch high-resolution touch display and a distinctive BlackBerry keyboard that easily slides out to allow faster typing.

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 smartphone, on the other hand, offers the fast, fluid BlackBerry 7 experience in a stylish all-touch design. With a spectacular 3.7-inch display (the largest ever on a BlackBerry smartphone), the new all-touch Torch 9860 is optimized for displaying webpages, photos, videos, and powerful gaming experiences.

Last but not least is the premium BlackBerry Bold 9900, which is now available in pure white.

The Bold 9900 is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone yet at only 10.5 mm. It offers the perfect union of a high-performance keyboard and touch display integrated within the iconic BlackBerry Bold design.

Distinguished by its beautiful design, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is crafted with premium materials, including a brushed stainless steel frame that puts the finishing touch on a truly outstanding smartphone.

Retail prices of the new Blackberry smartphones are as follows: BlackBerry Bold 9900, P31,690; BlackBerry Bold 9790, P22,890; BlackBerry Torch 9860, P24,690; BlackBerry Torch 9810, P28,590; and BlackBerry Curve 9380, P16,990.

All five new devices are powered by the BlackBerry 7 OS, which delivers a faster and richer user experience with improved browsing, voice-activated searches and support for Augmented Reality.

BlackBerry 7 offers the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, and comes with a variety of personal and productivity apps out of the box.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9380 and BlackBerry Bold 9900 also include support for NFC (Near Field Communications), which allows data transfers with a mere tap of the handset with another NFC-enabled device.