The First BlackBerry in Russia: 8700g

BlackBerry 8700g has become the first smartphone produced by RIM (Research in Motion) to be commercialized in Russia, after VimpelCom sold an undisclosed number of 8700g smartphones to the Russian division of British American Tobacco.

The use of BlackBerry handsets was approved by Russian authorities back in November 2007, but the first Berries were only now (at the beginning of April 2008) offered via a mobile operator.

Although it's not among the latest devices produced by the Canadians from RIM, BlackBerry 8700g is still a good smartphone that will bring Russian users features like push-email, a full QWERTY keyboard with 35 keys for easy typing, quad-band GSM connectivity with GPRS and EDGE, Internet browsing, Memo Pad, Tasks, Bluetooth, and a 320 x 240 pixels display with light sensing technology. BlackBerry 8700g measures 110 x 69.5 x 19.5 millimeters, weighs 134 grams and comes with a battery capable of offering up to 4 hours of talk time and a maximum of 16 days in stand-by mode.

Owner of the Beeline brand, VimpelCom is the second largest mobile carrier in Russia, currently having more than 41 million subscribers. The company will soon offer BlackBerry smartphones to more corporate customers (besides British American Tobacco) and probably to individual users too.

According to Reuters, MTS, the first Russian carrier in terms of subscribers number, will also bring BlackBerry handsets to the largest country in the world. MTS already launched BlackBerry smartphones in Ukraine, one of Russia's South-East neighbors and ex-member of the USSR.

Until now, there are no details about the price of BlackBerry 8700g in Russia, nor about what other RIM smartphones will be available in the country. But since Russia is an important mobile market (more than 160 million mobile subscribers), BlackBerries will most probably have the same success there as in the rest of the world.



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