The Phone House and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced that the BlackBerry® Bold™ and BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip smartphones will be available from The Phone House in December at its 400 stores in Spain. While no exact date has been given by either RIM or The Phone House, details in the press release elude to a launch set for ‘this Christmas’. It looks like BlackBerry hopefuls in Spain will have their shot at the Bold and Flip just in time for the New Year.
Crafted from premium materials that radiate elegance with a dramatic presence, the powerful and intuitive BlackBerry Bold smartphone is designed to provide business professionals and power users with exceptional functionality and performance. It supports tri-band HSDPA high-speed networks around the world and comes with integrated GPS and Wi-Fi®, as well as a rich set of multimedia capabilities. From its lustrous black exterior, satin chrome finished frame and stylish leatherette backplate, to its stunning display, sophisticated user interface and newly designed full-QWERTY keyboard, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone is a symbol of accomplishment and aspiration.
The BlackBerry Bold smartphone comes with an incredibly vivid display. Its HVGA (480×320 resolution at 217 ppi) colour LCD is fused to the undersurface of the lens, making images leap out with stunning definition and clarity. Pictures are vibrant and razor sharp, while videos play smoothly and web pages, documents, presentations and messages snap with exceptional quality and contrast. The BlackBerry Bold also includes 128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory, as well as a microSD/SDHC memory card slot for up to 16GB of additional storage. It features a 2 megapixel
camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and digital zoom.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone provides flip phone fans with all the power of a BlackBerry smartphone in a fun and familiar design. One quick flip of the handset opens up a world of possibilities with the industry’s leading mobile messaging solution and a wide range of impressive Internet and multimedia capabilities, all in one powerful yet approachable smartphone.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone features a large SureType® QWERTY keyboard that makes typing messages and dialing numbers fast and easy. It comes with two high-resolution, light-sensing color displays. An external LCD makes it easy to preview incoming emails, text messages and phone calls without opening the handset, while the large, 240 x 320 internal LCD displays messages, videos and web pages with impressive detail and contrast. It also comes packed with an abundance of useful features including built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), extending wireless email and data coverage over home Wi-Fi networks, enterprise wireless deployments and Wi-Fi hotspots.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip features a 2 megapixel camera that includes flash, zoom and video recording* to capture memories while on the move, and an advanced media player for listening to music, watching videos and displaying pictures.
Email and Messaging
Both smartphones work with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, which enables advanced security and IT administration within IBM® Lotus® Domino®, Microsoft® Exchange and Novell® GroupWise® environments, as well as BlackBerry® Professional Software for small businesses. It also works with BlackBerry® Internet Service, which gives users access to up to 10 supported work or personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts), and the BlackBerry® Unite! software for SOHO and home users. DataViz® Documents to Go® is also preloaded, allowing users to edit Microsoft® Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset.
Multimedia to Go
With an advanced media player for listening to music, watching videos and displaying pictures, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip and BlackBerry Bold smartphones are perfect on-the-go entertainment centers. Videos play smoothly on their large displays and music playlists can be managed directly on the handset; plus there’s an equalizer with 11 preset filters – including “Lounge”, “Jazz” and “Hip Hop” – for customizing audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers. Both smartphones work with the new BlackBerry® Media Sync application that makes it easy to sync iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone** and also feature conveniently accessible microSD/SDHC memory card slots that supports up to 16GB for plenty of additional storage. High Speed USB 2.0 support allows files to be quickly transferred between a desktop computer and the smartphones and the BlackBerry® Desktop Manager software includes Roxio® Media Manager for BlackBerry® to help users easily manage their music and video files. Roxio Photosuite® 9 LE is also included for creating photo albums and editing pictures on a computer.
BlackBerry smartphones can be bought from any of The Phone House retail stores and online through www.phonehouse.es.
* Video recording on the BlackBerry Pearl Flip requires a microSD memory card, sold separately.
** Certain music files may not be supported, including files that contain digital rights management technologies.
