Research In Motion (RIM) has announced that the latest addition to the company’s Blackberry family will be available ‘around the world’ this summer.

The BlackBerry Bold is the first BlackBerry to support tri-band HSDPA and that’s bound to get a few BlackBerry fanboy hearts pumping, but one of the things we were most excited about was the half-VGA (480 x 320) LCD screen. We have to admit that a small part of us was worried that RIM would release another unit with a more traditional cell-phone display. More recent additions to the BlackBerry family (such as the Pearl) have had a smaller display and while they were more than adequate for sending text messages or short memos, longer emails involved entirely too much scrolling for our liking. RIM did change back to the trustier, wider screens with the Curve and we were pleased to see that that was one thing they decided not to change. Just a few of the other features you can expect with the Bold include:

- 624 MHz Marvell Tavor PXA930 processor.

- 802.11 a/b/g and GPS

- Replaceable “leather-like” backplates

- Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support

- microSDHC support up to 16 GB

- Quad-band EDGE, Tri-band HSDPA

- 2MP camera with flash and 5x digital zoom

- 1GB on-board memory with encryption

The press release says we can expect to see the BlackBerry Bold “this Summer” however as all too many people will be quick to point out, the 3G iPhone rumour mill has been working overtime and unless the Bold hits stores at the same time or a very short time after, it’s going to be hard to resist a 3G Jesus phone if you’re looking for an upgrade this season.

According to Boy Genis Report pricing will be in the $300-$500 range with carrier and iPhone peddler AT&T will be the first to launch. However, there is also a 1700MHz model coming, which will support T-Mobile’s 3G data network.

Click here for the full press release.

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