BlackBerry Bold 9900 Up for Pre-Order at Vodafone UK, Available on August 12

It looks like BlackBerry fans living in the UK will be the first to get their hands on the recently announced BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone.

The handset is now available for pre-order from Vodafone UK, where customers can get it for free with select plans.

However, while Vodafone UK is offering the Bold 9900 for free on new two-year £41 ($67) monthly price plan, major retailer Carphone Warehouse has the phone for free with a slightly lower two-year £31 monthly price contract.

Customers who want to purchase the BlackBerry Bold 9900 without contract will have to pay £500 upfront.

Furthermore, according to Carphone Warehouse, customers who pre-order the smartphone will receive it in less than a week, as the phone is expected to be delivered on August 12.

Officially confirmed last week, the Bold 9900 has already been picked by numerous carriers around the world.

At just 10.5 mm thick, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is one of the slimmest BlackBerry smartphones.

The phone's high quality stainless steel and stylish design will definitely appeal to both business and heavy texters customers.

It comes with a 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen with support for 640 x 480 pixels resolution, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate.

Just like the upcoming BlackBerry Torch 9810 and Torch 9860, Bold 9900 is equipped with a single core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz.

Powered by RIM's latest BlackBerry 7 OS, the smartphone seems to be a bold step ahead for the company.

The new mobile platform provides support for HSPA+ connectivity and Liquid Graphics touch screen.

The phone packs 8 GB of internal memory, 768 MB RAM, as well as microSD slot for memory expansion (up to 32 GB).

The embedded 5.0-megapixel photo snapper supports 720p HD video recording and playback, as well as autofocus, LED flash, face detection and image stabilization.