BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 UK release date announced

BlackBerry Bold Touch - just a couple of weeks left to wait
BlackBerry Bold Touch - just a couple of weeks left to wait

The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 UK release date has finally been revealed, courtesy of Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy which will be stocking the handset from 18 August.

The retailers will offer the Bold Touch for free on contracts from £31 per month, with no word on SIM-free pricing just yet.

Plus now we have moving pictures of the phone too, so check out our BlackBerry Bold 9900 video review:

Announced back in May, the touch and type candybar handset combines RIM's much-loved physical QWERTY keyboard with an itty bitty 2.8-inch touchscreen.

Boldly go

It's the follow-up to the popular BlackBerry Bold 9780, with a very similar design rendered in premium materials like the brushed stainless-steel casing.

The Bold Touch is also the first handset to rock BlackBerry OS 7, which brings faster loading times, redesigned icons, an updated Facebook app and the new iteration of BlackBerry Messenger to the party.

Matt Stringer, UK MD for The Carphone Warehouse reckons that all this means the Bold Touch will, "appeal to more than just the traditional business user."

We're sure RIM is hoping so too. The other handsets it is pinning its hopes on include the BlackBerry Torch 9860 and BlackBerry Torch 9810, both of which were announced this morning.

News Editor (UK)

Former UK News Editor for TechRadar, it was a perpetual challenge among the TechRadar staff to send Kate (Twitter, Google+) a link to something interesting on the internet that she hasn't already seen. As TechRadar's News Editor (UK), she was constantly on the hunt for top news and intriguing stories to feed your gadget lust. Kate now enjoys life as a renowned music critic – her words can be found in the i Paper, Guardian, GQ, Metro, Evening Standard and Time Out, and she's also the author of 'Amy Winehouse', a biography of the soul star.