BlackBerry Curve 9360 Headed to Virgin Mobile

Already confirmed by Bell, it appears that BlackBerry Curve 9360 will also be introduced by Virgin Mobile some time next week.

Although no official launch date has been disclosed yet, we can assume that the smartphone will be tagged with the same suggested retail price as the Bell variant, $349.95 off-contract.

However, any changes may occur when it comes to the handset's price, especially that Koodo Mobile also promises to offer the Curve 9360 for as low as $300, or even cheaper with the Tab.

As for the possible release date, Bell stated that the BlackBerry Curve 9360 will hit shelves on August 29, so we can safely assume that Virgin Mobile will launch the smartphone around the same date.

TELUS, SaskTel and Rogers are also in line to offer the Curve 9360, but no price options have been revealed yet.

For unknown reasons Research in Motion (RIM) decided to skip the BlackBerry Curve 9360 from the official announcement that unveiled some of the most powerful BlackBerry smartphones available on the market, such as the Bold 9900, Torch 9810 and Torch 9860.

Still, the Curve 9360 is an excellent alternative for those who cannot afford the more advanced Bold 9900, Torch 9810 and 9860.

BlackBerry Curve 9360 is powered by RIM's latest BlackBerry 7 operating system and comes with a small 2.4-inch display with 480 x 320 pixels resolution support.

The phone features the same BlackBerry-esque form factor and comes with a full portrait QWERTY keyboard.

Equipped with an 800MHz processor, the Curve 9360 is not as fast as its BlackBerry 7 brothers, which are powered by 1.2Ghz CPUs.

It is unclear if the phone will be delivered with an NFC (Near Field Communication) chip on board, but other connectivity options are available for users, including Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support and GPS with A-GPS (BlackBerry Maps).