BlackBerry Bold 9790 by RIM Arriving in the UK on January 20

Initially slated for a January 9 release in the UK, the BlackBerry Bold 9790’s launch was delayed due to unknown reasons. RIM unveiled its latest Blackberry Bold 9790 smartphone last year, but due to several concerns RIM was unable to launch it within expected time frame.

However, UK-based retailer Clove has a new deadline for the smartphone’s arrival, which might appeal to RIM fans. The Bold 9790 should be available for purchase in the UK on January 20 via Clove.

The smartphone is currently available for pre-order for £342 (525 USD or 415 EUR) outright, but the price might drop closer to the release date. Orange and O2 UK confirmed they would carry the BlackBerry Bold 9790 as well, but did not reveal any exact release dates for the smartphone.

The Bold 9790 is one of the latest BlackBerry 7 smartphones launched by RIM and comes with a decent 2.45-inch standard display, 1GHz single core processor, 768MB of RAM and NFC support.

The handset has a standard Blackberry look and it has several notable features like a touch display with QWERTY keyboard, 5-MP rear facing camera.

The Bold 9790 has several connectivity supports which include Bluetooth, WI-Fi, 3G, and Near Field Communication (NFC). Sources believe that the smartphone will release running on Blackberry 7 operating system and it will receive the Blackberry 7.1 (which is the latest version of OS and announced at CES 2012) after its release.

BlackBerry manufacturer RIM has a lot riding on the launch after what was a pretty bad 2011. In 2011 the once all conquering BlackBerry fell behind the likes of Apple’s iPhone and a host of Android operated smartphones.

The BlackBerry OS also suffered a massive fail at the end of 2011 after a network error in Slough, Berkshire, brought millions of handsets worldwide to a halt when it came to accessing their email, text messages or social networks. Ever fickle smartphone users were not happy to say the least. But the BlackBerry Bold 9790 promises to revert the rot. One of the unique features of the phone is that it runs on the newest Blackberry OS (Blackberry OS 7.0), which promises to be faster and more powerful than predecessors. 

BlackBerry Bold 9790 vs Apple iPhone 4S vs Samsung Galaxy S3

The new BlackBerry Bold 9790 is a good phone. But will it be enough to beat Apple’s iPhone 4S, let alone the arrival (no doubt in 2012) of the iPhone 5 later in the year? What about the Samsung Galaxy S3, the popular new Android smartphone from Samsung? 

Only initial sales figures will be able to answer that question, but it is an up-hill struggle for BlackBerry on current performance. 

How did BlackBerry go wrong?

The BlackBerry device was well loved by business users in the past, but has since fallen out of favour with tech-innovators and leisure users. This left BlackBerry to a large extend torn between the two – scared of alienating their core business userbase by embracing consumer demands fully and not giving business users the exact handset they need.

This is why you end up with a phone with a touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard, as the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 does,  so that it can cater to the needs of both consumer and business professionals.