BlackBerry has officially announced the touch screen enabled Bold 9900 and Bold 9930, ending speculation over the existence of these devices. The 9900 will be the US version of the device while the 9930 is expected to be launched the world over.
Both devices will come loaded with BlackBerry's latest operating system the BlackBerry OS 7. BlackBerry OS 7 will integrate BlackBerry Balance, which separates personal content from corporate content on the smartphone, giving users the flexibility to use the handset for personal email, Facebook, Twitter, multimedia, games and other apps while satisfying the very real need for corporate data to be highly secure and manageable.
BlackBerry is touting both phones as the thinnest BlackBerry ever made, at a slim profile of 10.5mm. But they still cannot match the anorexic madness of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S 2, which are measured in the sub 9mm range.
Both devices will pack a 1.2Ghz processor, a Liquid Graphics touch screen and high speed data capabilities including 4G. Previously the BlackBerry Torch was criticized for its slow processor and it looks like BlackBerry hopes to make amends to that trend.
The Liquid Graphics touch screen, is a new feature powered by BlackBerry OS 7, which will deliver fast, smooth performance for highly responsive touch-based navigation, web browsing, pictures, video and graphics intensive games. Through the Liquid Graphics touch display, both the devices will have an impressive resolution of 287 dpi, which is second only to the iPhone 4.
Besides the new processor enhancement both devices will have built in Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities. Previously only the Samsung Nexus S has come preloaded with this technology and many suspect the upcoming iPhone 5 will also include this feature. NFC is touted to be the next generation transaction technology, which may, in time, replace credit cards.
Both the devices will be released with a preloaded version of 'Document 2 Go' Premium, which is the top mobile office suite.
As of now BlackBerry has not announced when both of these devices will be available in the market.