By Patrick Avenell
The long wait for BlackBerry fans is almost over, with Optus today announcing it will be the first telco to carry the new Bold 9900 handset and the Torch 9860, which was announced yesterday.
Both these handsets will be available from Optus on 1 September 2011, with pre-ordering now open on the carrier’s website. Pricing for the two devices has not yet been announced.
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Here’s Optus Digital Media director Austin Bryan expressing his joy at this exclusive distribution agreement.
“We’re excited that Optus customers will be among the first in the world to get their hands on these fantastic BlackBerry smartphones featuring the new BlackBerry 7 Operating System,” he said. “This is yet another example of Optus bringing leading digital devices to its customers before any other carrier.”
A full report on the BlackBerry Bold 9900 can be found here.
The Torch 9860 is the second iteration in BlackBerry’s Torch series. Although the previous model (9800) was full touch and full QWERTY in a slide form factor, the 9860 dispenses the keypad to be solely full touch. Whilst that results in the handset can being thinner and the screen bigger, it does mean the BlackBerry’s core competency – email correspondence – is restricted solely to touch input.
The 9860 will run off BlackBerry 7 OS, the latest version of the operating system, which promises a faster browser, ‘Liquid Graphics’ and voice-activated search.
Current.com.au will have full reviews of both the new handsets as soon as they become available.
The new BlackBerry Torch 9860.