14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Bell will not be the first Canadian carrier to release the latest BlackBerry 7 smartphones, Bold 9900, Torch 9810 and 9860.
According to an internal document, Bell plans to release the first two smartphones, Bold 9900 and Torch 9810 on August 16, while the Torch 9860 will be available six days later, on August 22.
However, Rogers has already announced that it will launch all three devices by August 12, which means that it will be the fist carrier to make them available in Canada.
Obviously, BlackBerry fans can already purchase the Bold 9900 or the Torch 9810 via Best Buy and Future Shops stores.
Unfortunately, Bell customers who are waiting for either of these three devices will be disappointed to find that none of them will be delivered with Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities.
As Bell's leaked document suggests, due to unknown reasons Wi-Fi spot functionality will be available via software update post launch.
Even though the document states that the smartphone will receive the feature after launch there is no mention of when the software update will be released.
Given the fact that the internal document has been issued on August 4, there's a slim chance that these things will change by the time the smarpthones go live, but until then we can assume that Wi-Fi spot functionality will be skipped.
While Rogers and TELUS have already announced the pricing for the BlackBerry 7 smartphones, Bell has yet to unveil them in the next few days.
The BlackBerry Torch 9800, Torch 9810 comes with the same 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display, but with a slightly higher 480 x 640 pixels resolution.
Both torch 9810 and Bold 9900 are powered by RIM's latest BlackBerry 7 operating system and pack 8GB storage, 768 MB RAM and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).
In addition, the smartphones come with QWERTY keyboard and a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording capabilities.
Each are equipped with 1.2 GHz processors, Bold 9900 and Torch 9810 offer users a full array of connectivity options, including NFC support, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth and GPS with A-GPS support.
UPDATE: It looks like Bell decided to go live with BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Torch 9810. Both smartphones can now be purchased online and in-store for the following prices:
BlackBerry Bold 9900 - no contract: $599.99; 1-year contract: $574.99; 2-year contract: $449.99; 3-year contract: $169.99.
BlackBerry Torch 9810 - no contract: $599.95; 1-year contract: $574.95; 2-year contract: $549.95; 3-year contract: $149.95.
