BlackBerry Bold 9700 announced

RESEARCH IN MOTION (RIM) has announced the addition of a BlackBerry Bold smartphone to its line of crackberries.

The Bold 9700 is the successor to the Bold 9000 that was launched in 2008. It promises to "appeal to both men and women and for both professional and personal use", according to RIM, which seems like quite an expansive claim.

It is certainly thinner and slightly lighter than its predecessor, with a 2.44-inch screen having slightly improved screen resolution - 480x360 versus 480x320 pixels.

The 'pearl' navigator has been replaced with a touchpad and much of the lightness comes from the plastic casing which was formerly metal.

It's got "a highly tactile, distinctive, fretted keyboard" and the Marvell Tavor processor running at 624MHz with 256MB memory, GPS, WiFi and Blackberry OS 5.0.

Also included are the usual 3.5mm headphone plug, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, a microSD card reader, 3G connectivity and an estimated talk time of six hours, or two days on standby.

No launch date or network sponsor has been announced and RIM is keeping how much it will cost, either per month or pay-as-you-go, under wraps too.

The Canadian company launched its second touchscreen device, the Storm2 9520, last week as an update to its original Storm mobile. Our review described it as a service pack rather than an entirely new handset.

With both phones out, it is believed that for Christmas RIM is looking to cover the professional market with the Bold 9700 and the personal market with the Storm2 9520. µ