BlackBerry Bold 9700 Onyx officially announced. Global launch in November

Blackberry 9700 Onyx

As a big fan of RIM and an avid user of the BlackBerry Bold, I can truly say that I’m very exited about the upcoming model that faithfully follows in the previous model’s footsteps. The new Bold 9700 has been officially announced just recently, and features more or less minimal upgrades, but which can prove to be quite sensible. The design is more or less the same, except some extracted/added chrome line, an increase in screen resolution and a revamp of the back, where the leather covering was removed. The camera was moved up to 3.2 megapixels, giving the screen another 40 lines of vertical resolution (480 x 360, up from 480 x 320), and shipping with the brand new BlackBerry OS 5.0 out of the gate. Also notable is that the 9700 replaces the trackball with an optical trackpad –continuing a trend started by the Curve 8520 — and will ship in both 900 / 1700 / 2100 and 800 / 850 / 1900 / 2100MHz 3G varieties.

The exact date hasn’t been announced yet, but RIM stated that the model will begin worldwide shipping in November. T-Mobile just announced its flavor of the Bold 9700 for the US which it says will be the first BlackBerry that allows voice calling over WiFi and AT&T says the 9700 will be out in the “coming weeks” for $199 after $100 mail-in rebate. So there you have it, a new Bold, that most likely will join the new BB Storm, will grace the user base soon. JOY!