Canada-based Research in Motion (RIM) today launched a new smartphone in the Indian market, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 which will be available in the unlocked version through its Indian distributor partner Redington as well as in tie-up with mobile service providers Airtel, Aircel, BSNL, Idea Cellular, Loop Mobile, MTNL, Reliance, Tata and Vodafone from today.

The QWERTY keypad 3G ready touch phone phone has features incorporated to simplify accessing popular social networking sites and instant messengers. It supports 3G HSPDA networks and has an 256 MB internal memory which can be expanded upto 16 GB, a 3.2 mega pixel camera, video recording capability

"Building on the success of the original BlackBerry Bold, we are now pleased to  introduce the new BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone to customers in India. The new 3G BlackBerry Bold 9700 offers top-of-the-line features and performance in a sleek and elegant design that will appeal to both business professionals and consumers,” says Frenny Bawa, Vice President, India, Research In Motion.

Dimensions include 4.29" x 2.36" x 0.56" (109 mm x 60 mm x 14.1 mm) and the phone weighs 4.3 oz (122 grams). It has a 2.44” light-sensing display (480 x 360 resolution at 245 ppi). It supports Wi-Fi connection and has BlackBerry 5.0 operating system. GPS and photo geotagging features are also supported by the phone. It also supports VAS features such as BlackBerry Media Sync for easy synching of photos, iTunes and Windows Media player.

BlackBerry Desktop Manager for PCs and Macs is also incorporated in the phone.  It has Bluetooth connectivity. Supports BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

The phone has a removable, rechargeable 1500 mAhr battery that provides approximately 6 hours of talk time and 17 days of standby time in 3G mode.