RIM Soon To Release White BlackBerry 9900 on AT&T

It’s not been an easy year for Canadian handset manufacturers RIM. Their popular BlackBerry phones have taken a number of blows, from the disappointing failure of the PlayBook, the BlackBerry tablet, to the four day worldwide BlackBerry Messenger service outage. Things just haven’t fallen into place, and they’ve had to rely on a few key handsets to keep them going until the release of the new operating system, BBX, early next year.

One of these handsets is the top-of-the-line BlackBerry Bold 9900. The phone’s proved quite popular, both with executives and the teenage crowd, despite its relatively high price. This is largely down to the strides that have been made to catch up with Android and iOS phones; the 9900 includes a large 2.8″ touch screen and a 1.2GHz processor in addition to the BlackBerry mainstays of a quality hardware keyboard and excellent security.

Over the last week, RIM have attempted to extend the handset’s longevity by expanding into new markets, as evidenced by these two news items.

The first is the news that the phone will soon be available in white. The color has long proven popular with fashionistas and celebrities, and a white BlackBerry is more often than not the mobile of choice for any starlet. The news broke last week at a technology festival in Dubai, where the white handset was shown off. The photo below was taken there, and shows the handset’s clean and simple design.

Vodafone UK jumped at the news, quickly gathering a white BlackBerry 9900 handset of their own and making a YouTube video about it. The video does a better job than the photo of showing off the device, with the crisp stainless steel rim contrasting nicely with the white chassis. If past success is any indicator, this white BlackBerry 9900 could become the next big celebrity phone-of-choice.

In more relevant news (for those of us that don’t care too much about the entertainment industry), AT&T have announced via one of their Twitter accounts that the sim free BlackBerry 9900will soon be available on their network. While few details are provided, it does seem likely that the network will be the first to offer the white edition of the phone, possibly giving them a leg up against other networks which have had the phone for longer.

All in all then, if you’re a fan of the BlackBerry 9900 then it’s good news all around. I’m not one for fashion most of the time, but I have to admit that the white version does look quite good. It’ll be interesting to see if these new releases can change RIM’s fortunes, or whether they’ll have to hang on for dear life until the release of their BBX-powered phones next year.

This article was written by William Judd. William writes for Mobile Fun, the UK’s leading online retailer of the sim free BlackBerry Bold 9900.