BlackBerry Bold 9790

Available now
15th November 2011

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is an update to last year's Bold 9780, but although both handsets look superficially similar, the Bold 9790 has been upgraded with a small touchscreen, a much faster processor and a very significant upgrade to the internal flash memory.

The 9790 also updates the operating system to BlackBerry 7, bringing it into line with almost all the rest of the BlackBerry range.

Despite the improvements, this handset is likely to appeal to existing BlackBerry fans rather than new customers. Over recent months, BlackBerry has had significant network outages and the shine is definitely going off their products. And these latest BlackBerry devices will be among the last of their type before BlackBerry moves to their new - and untested - BBX operating system.

Don't expect to be able to achieve much on the 2.45" 480 x 360 pixel touchscreen display. Although small displays like this do have their uses, they are simply not practical for anything other than very basic prodding at the screen. The small touchpad under the screen is probably more use. Of course BlackBerries are not the only devices to come with such a basic touchscreen, but rivals such as the Nokia Asha 303 are only half the price.

On the back is a 5 megapixel camera with VGA resolution video recording. Inside is 8GB of flash memory with a speedy 1GHz processor. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 supports GPS, 3.5G connectivity and WiFi plus all the usual features you would expect.

The Bold 9790 should cost something in the region of €370 at launch, a lot cheaper than the street price of €500 for the Bold 9900, but a lot more expensive than the €140 or so for the Asha 303. Alternatively, you can get the Curve 9360 for about €290 which does almost everything that the Bold 9790 does except it comes with a much more basic screen.

Research in Motion say that the BlackBerry Bold should be available in the next few weeks.