BlackBerry 9800 at AT&T in August, at Vodafone in September

One of the yet unannounced mobile phones from the Canadian handset vendor Research In Motion is the BlackBerry 9800 slider, a device long rumored to be in the works, and which might be closer to launch than ever. According to the latest rumors around the Internet, we should expect for the upcoming BlackBerry smartphone to arrive in the United States as soon as next month, while the European market would see it in September or October.

Moreover, it seems that the upcoming device, the first ever BlackBerry smartphone to boast a sliding form factor, should be released in the US on the airwaves of AT&T, while European users would enjoy it with Vodafone connectivity. Canadians are also expected to enjoy the handset soon, on Rogers' network. Of course, nothing has been confirmed for the time being, but a recent article on BlackBerry Cool suggests that things should become official in the very near future, as RIM targets an August 15 release date at AT&T.

The BlackBerry 9800 Slider, which might hit the shelves under the name of Torch, some say, is the first smartphone from RIM to put together a QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen display, while also being the first to sport a slider. The upcoming device is said to run under the new BlackBerry 6 OS, while putting together the best features of RIM's Bold and Storm mobile phones.

Among the features that BlackBerry 9800 would include, courtesy of its hardware specs and of that BlackBerry 6 OS RIM packed inside it, we can count a nice range of enhanced multimedia capabilities, as well as a fast WebKit browser, which reportedly comes with tabbed browsing and “pinch-to-zoom” functionality. As stated above, nothing has been confirmed as of yet regarding the BlackBerry slider. However, in case the rumor would pan out, RIM should announce the device officially within the next few weeks, and we'd learn more on its at that time.

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