Research In Motion (RIM) has launched two stylish new smartphones for socially connected customers in Latin America Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.

The new BlackBerry Curve 9320 and BlackBerry Curve 9220 smartphones feature all the market leading messaging and social networking capabilities that have helped make BlackBerry smartphones so popular in Latin America. Designed to be easy to use and easy to own, these new models also each offer the longest lasting battery life yet in a BlackBerry Curve smartphone, allowing users to make the most of their day.

“The BlackBerry Curve series of smartphones have been very well received by customers in Latin America as the best messaging and social centric smartphones in the world,” said Rick Costanzo, Regional Managing Director for the Americas at Research In Motion.

“We have worked closely with our distributors and carrier partners in Latin America to make it attractive and easy for customers to own either of these two new BlackBerry Curve smartphones.” 

“The new BlackBerry Curve 9320 and BlackBerry Curve 9220 are designed for ease of use and convenience. They will be especially attractive to customers in Latin America who are upgrading to a smartphone for the first time, as well as existing Curve customers looking for a step up in speed and functionality,” added Matthias Glanz, Vice President, Product Management at Research In Motion.

The BlackBerry Curve 9320 and BlackBerry Curve 9220 have everything a customer needs to stay in touch with the people and things that matter most to them. They offer the best keyboards in their class for quick and easy typing, and they even feature a new dedicated BBM™ key to bring the power of RIM’s popular mobile social network up in an instant.

“The new BlackBerry Curve 9320 and 9220 smartphones offer truly unique and compelling messaging and social networking experiences for mobile users in Thailand.  We believe that Thai customers will also appreciate the ease of use and affordability of these new models,” said Nicholas Horton, Managing Director, Indo China at RIM.

Customers can also easily interact with their social network in real time, using preloaded apps for Facebook and Twitter In addition, the new Social Feeds 2.0 app is preloaded, allowing customers to post updates to multiple social networks simultaneously and capture updates from news sources (RSS), social apps and instant messaging apps all in one consolidated view. The integrated camera includes a flash (1) and supports video recording (2), and pictures taken with the Curve 9320 can be tagged with their location thanks to the smartphone’s built in GPS.

The new BlackBerry Curve smartphones also feature a built in FM radio that allows customers to tune into their favorite local stations, and listening to the FM radio does not require a data plan or use data services. With the long lasting battery, customers can get up to 7 hours of talk time or up to 28 hours(3) of music playback or FM radio listening with headphones.

These new smartphones come with the new BlackBerry 7.1 OS, which supports features such as Mobile Hotspot (Wi-Fi sharing) (4) and Parental Controls, a brand new, on device feature that provides parents and guardians with simple options to help protect children by restricting access to specific functions, features and applications.