T-Mobile through a brief notice said it was shipping its version of the BlackBerry Curve 9360 next week. RIM’s entry-level smartphone will ship on September 28 for $80 on a contract and after a rebate. Along with black, a T-Mobile hued “merlot” purple will also be an option.
The launch is the first in the US and makes it the cheapest BlackBerry 7 device in the country. Although it doesn’t have a touchscreen, it has a much faster 800MHz processor than its Curve 3G predecessor as well as a sharper 480×360* display and a five-megapixel camera. The design is simultaneously RIM’s thinnest Curve ever.
Sprint was originally to get a CDMA version of the new Curve sooner, on September 9, but delayed it to early October for unknown technical reasons. AT&T and Verizon haven’t committed to the starter BlackBerry so far.
*Error Fix: We first reported the screen size of the new Curve 9360 as 480×320, which was in error. Thanks goes out to the RIM media relations team showing us the error, so we could fix it.
