RIM announces BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone
Posted by Seth Planck
November 15th, 2011 at 4:47 PM Filed Under Latest News
RIM announces BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone
We have known that the BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone has been coming for months now. For the longest time we knew this phone by its Bellagio code name, and there have been leaks galore revealing most of the specifications to the next BlackBerry Bold family member to boast NFC. However, now it’s official and RIM has confirmed all the rumors, videos and leaked shots. Being another member of the BlackBerry Bold family, the 9790 comes with slightly different features to its 9900 / 9930 brethren.
Gone is the brushed aluminum band that snuggly wraps around the 9900 and 9930. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone instead has more black plastic than you can shake a stick at. However, it doesn’t appear to look cheap and, in fact, its aesthetics appear more modern than its bold cousins in the way there isn’t the slightest hint of a straight angle on the NFC smartphone but instead has sweeping curves. The specifications of the BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone are solid if not a little watered down from those of the 9900 and 9930. Although no pricing has been announced, we are expecting the BlackBerry Bold 9790 to be a little more cost effective than the other current Bold NFC smartphones.
BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone Video
Apart from the images we used at the top of this post, BlackBerry hasn’t let loose with a massive gallery of shots of the BlackBerry Bold 9790 as yet. However, there are plenty of spy shots around and below you will see a video that contains a 3D render of the phone.
BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone specifications
The standout features are NFC capabilities. As with every other NFC capable BlackBerry, whether or not your BlackBerry Bold 9790 is NFC enabled will depend on the carrier you select. BlackBerry OS 7 isn’t reading NFC tags well at the moment and those problems are due to be fixed in the OS 7.1 update that is expected by the end of this year. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone ditches the 1.2GHz processor found in the pricier 9900 and 9930 models, but substitutes that processor with a, if not bleeding edge, respectable 1Ghz Marvel Tavor MG1 CPU. A 5-megapixel camera is on board which is a mid-range feature these days and RIM is making a big noise about NFC and augmented reality.
“We are very excited to expand the BlackBerry 7 portfolio with the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380,” said Carlo Chiarello, Senior Vice President of Handheld Product Management at Research In Motion. “BlackBerry smartphones offer a uniquely refined mobile communications experience that people love and we think many customers will be thrilled by the faster performance, beautiful touch displays and compact designs available with these new BlackBerry 7 based models.”
We are not sure whether the BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone will be upgraded to the new QNX OS when it’s released, but we would have thought that RIM would bear that in mind when releasing this smartphone. Find the full specs below for the BlackBerry Bold 9790, and notice there are no announced details of a CDMA version yet – so perhaps this touch screen NFC smartphone will be giving Sprint and Verizon a miss. We think that would be a shame and we hope Sprint and Verizon pick up a version of this NFC smartphone.
BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone specs
| General | 2G Network | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
|---|---|---|
| 3G Network | HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 / 800 | |
| HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 | ||
| Announced | 2011, November | |
| Status | Coming soon |
| DIMS | Dimensions | 110 x 60 x 11.4 mm |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 107 g |
| Screen | Type | TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 480 x 360 pixels, 2.45 inches (~245 ppi pixel density) | |
| - QWERTY keyboard - Optical trackpad |
| Audio | Alert types | Vibration, MP3 ringtones |
|---|---|---|
| Loudspeaker | Yes | |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes |
| Memory | Phonebook | Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall |
|---|---|---|
| Call records | Yes | |
| Internal | 8 GB storage, 768 MB RAM | |
| Card slot | microSD, up to 32GB |
| Data | GPRS | Yes |
|---|---|---|
| EDGE | Yes | |
| 3G | HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps | |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, UMA (carrier-dependent) | |
| Bluetooth | Yes, v2.1 with A2DP, EDR | |
| Infrared port | No | |
| USB | Yes, microUSB v2.0 |
| Camera | Primary | 5 MP, 2592×1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash |
|---|---|---|
| Features | Geo-tagging, face detection, image stabilization | |
| Video | Yes, VGA | |
| Secondary | No |
| Features | OS | BlackBerry OS 7.0 |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Marvel Tavor MG1 1 GHz processor | |
| Messaging | SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM | |
| Browser | HTML | |
| Radio | No | |
| Games | Yes + downloadable | |
| Colors | Black | |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS support | |
| Java | No | |
| - NFC support (carrier-dependent) - SNS applications - Document viewer - MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/FLAC player - MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player - Organizer - Voice memo/dial - Predictive text input |
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Ion (JM-1) | |
|---|---|---|
| Stand-by | Up to 432 h (2G) / Up to 408 h (3G) | |
| Talk time | Up to 5 h 10 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 20 min (3G) | |
| Music play | Up to 33 h |
BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone summary
As of yet, no pricing or carriers have been announced outside of Indonesia. There is also no firm launch date for the BlackBerry Bold 9790. The big question for us is this – does this iteration of the BlackBerry Bold have enough unique features to warrant a separate model? RIM appears to be deploying multiple versions of the same NFC smartphone in both the Bold and Curve series. Do you think doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results will bring familiarity and put BlackBerry back on the top of the pile? Or does the Canadian company need to redesign and reinvent itself to stay relevant?
We have a 9930 test unit here and we like it. We love our current crop of Android NFC smartphones, but we like the BlackBerry. Many people would like to see BlackBerry rise to the top again and we count ourselves among that group, but we are not convinced the BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone is going to set anyone’s world on fire outside of tried and true BlackBerry fans. With that said, if RIM sells the BlackBerry Bold 9790 NFC smartphone at the right price, who knows?