BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Storm 2 set for Aussie launch

RIM is set to follow up on this month’s release of the consumer-minded BlackBerry Curve 8520 with a revamp of its two flagship smartphones.

Both the Storm 2 and the Bold 9700 will sport the fresh-baked BlackBerry OS 5.0 and are tipped to launch here next month.

The Storm 2 (aka Storm 9520, shown above) was announced overnight by RIM and Vodafone UK, and like the original Storm is expected to be exclusive to Vodafone Australia when it hits our shores.

It sports an improved touch-screen ‘SureTouch’ technology which replaces the original mechanical system with an all-electronic digital system. It also gains Wi-Fi, which was a critical omission in the first Storm.

Overall performance – loading and switching between apps, Web browsing and  the speed and accuracy of automatic screen rotation between portrait and landscape modes – has also been enhanced.

BlackBerry fans eager for a hands-on review of the Storm 2 can do no better than to check out the extensive report at CrackBerry.com.
The second-gen BlackBerry Bold hasn’t been officially announced but it’s out of the skunkworks and has shed its codename of Onyx for a model number of 9700 (the original Bold was the 9000). It’s also been leaked onto the Web site of Germany mobile carrier T-Mobile and tagged with a November availability date.

The Bold 9700 combines the best bits of its predecessor – such as solid 3G HSDPA performance, GPS, Wi-Fi, 600+MHz processor and an excellent keyboard – and members of the Curve family.

These later traits include a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and auto-focus, a sharper screen res (upped from 480 x 320 to 480 x 360) and the tiny touch-sensitive trackpad introduced on the Curve 8520 in place of the ‘pearl’ trackball.

The Bold 9700 also sports the smaller and soon-to-be-standard MicroUSB socket for charging the battery (which fortunately remains the same 1550mAh cell as the Bold 9000) and synchronising the device with your Windows or Mac (using RIM’s recently-released Desktop Manager for Mac software).

For all the tech goodness crammed into its more stylish high-gloss black shell, the Bold 9700 manages to be noticeably smaller and slimmer – it’s closer in size to the compact Curve 8900.