Canadian carriers start releasing pricing and dates for the BlackBerry Bold 9790 and Curve 9380

on 16 Nov 2011 09:24 AM

Carriers across Canada are starting to announce when they'll be releasing the newly announced BlackBerry Bold 9790. Yesterday Rogers and TELUS both dropped some information, with Rogers being a bit cryptic and only saying it will be out "just in time for the holiday gift-giving season". TELUS went ahead and posted their pricing info for the Bold, but no date for release yet. You'll be able to buy the 9790 with no contract for $479, or as low as $129 on a 3-year contract with a plan of at least $50.

As for the all touchscreen BlackBerry Curve 9380, TELUS announced pricing coming in at $369.99 off contract or as low as $49.99 with a 3-year contract. Bell threw out that they will be releasing the 9380 on November 28th, but hasn't let any pricing info out as of yet. I'm sure in the near future we'll be finding out a lot more specific information regarding the availability of these new BlackBerry smartphones. Are you planning on picking up either the Bold 9790 or Curve 9380? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: TELUS, Rogers and MobileSyrup

Filed Under: News & Rumors; Tags: Bell, BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9380, Rogers, Telus

20 Comments

Posted by anakin1978 Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

No Im planning to get the Galaxy Nexus.

Posted by gord888 Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

i suppose if you're going to get an android phone it might as well be the one with the greatest chance of getting os updates. But BB still has the worlds best keyboards :)

Posted by Rootbrian Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 189 days ago

What about windmobile, mobilicity?

I wanna be able to keep the 97xx formfactor and the autofocus. I'll be asking them about it later.

Posted by Rootbrian Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 189 days ago

What about windmobile, mobilicity?

I wanna be able to keep the 97xx formfactor and the autofocus. I'll be asking them about it later.

Posted by barrist Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

$129 on a 3 year? are you serious? Why is the no-contract price relatively cheap compared to other phones but $129 for a 3 year? when at the same carrier you can get an Amaze for $99 a Galaxy S2 for $99, Heck the old Desire HD at $29.99 is a better deal.

RIM still thinks its a premium brand when it isnt. It's too bad because I am rooting for them.

Posted by highos Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

Why is RIM getting hate for this? Pretty sure the carrier sets the price on their contracts pricing not RIM!

I agree that the contract price is pretty high-tend to come down quickly though after release but even so the carriers do love to get that extra bit of cash from first few months of early adopters.

Posted by larue00 Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

Because your balance will be only 350$.

Posted by svoisin Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

On the telus network. I know I know. Getting the 9790 as soon as it comes to stores.

Posted by brava27 Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

I love how this phone is touch screen and 9780 form factor with auto focus. My choice over the 9900 for sure.

Posted by BBA Brian Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

no HSPA+ is a deal breaker

Posted by SuperionMaximus Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

Totally messed up pricing.

The off contract pricing is good for both phones, but since most people never look at the off contract price and only care about the 3 yr term (yes to our American friends 36 month contracts are standard fare in Canada) price, both of these phones are WAY over priced.

The Curve should be free. Since BlackBerry has a poor rep in the all touch screen market that the 9860 is doing it's best to overcome, the new Curve 9380 bares a shocking resemblance to the Storm and Storm II and that's a BAD thing. I do get RIM's logic behind having a touch screen Curve, but the pricing isn't going to nab many holiday shoppers attention.

So to ask anything but free for it is the carriers basically telling RIM they are doing their patriotic duty bay releasing the damn thing, but they have no intentions of selling it to anyone that isn't a die hard fan or some one under contract with and expensive BB that needs a cheap one to replace a broken phone and is willing to cough up the no term price.

The Bold 9790 should be somewhere around $29.99 as it is a very small incremental increase over the 9780 and really does not even have a reason to exist as the 9900 has been well received and personally I think that there should only ever be 1 bold at a time as having 2 phones with the flagship name causes confusion. Sure have multiple variants of the Curve on the low end, but a flagship brand like the bold should be the pinnacle device in the line up.

Having two phones called Torch is dumb to. RIM needs to really re-evaluate their product planning and naming.

Posted by Thunderbuck Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

My wife wants a new phone to replace her Storm. She's only 2 years into her contract, though, so has a limited trade-in allowance. What she DOES have is almost enough to cover the new Curve outright.

Oh, and my (Bell-affiliate) carrier is offering a 64GB Playbook for only $199 with a new BB activation. I've been told this scenario will count.

Kind of a no-brainer, there.

Posted by SuperionMaximus Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

Oops, double post

Posted by ODAAT Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

I am on Orange in the UK so will wait and see what they have to offer. As a 9780 owner, the 9790 makes total sense- as others have said, the autofocus camera is a big plus. Looking forward to a CB review anyway. I am not desperate to upgrade as my 9780 does everything I want it to, but I guess a little less lag every now and again would be good too! I have looked a lot at other phones, but for funtionality, my BB does everything I need it to, fast and well, so why change? I spend too much time on my phone as it is, without even more apps to swallow up time. Besides, with a PB, I have plenty of games if need be.

In the meantime, I wish the RIM haters would hurry up and get their new phones.

Posted by SuperionMaximus Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

I agree that autofocus is nice. But that's what I mean about product planing. Thinness isn't really an excuse as to why the 9900 lacks an autofocus shooter as there are plenty of phones on the market that are just as thin and have an autofocus module stuffed in there.

Plus I hate that RIM makes you choose. The Flagship phone should have the best of everything. ALL OS 7 devices should have NFC, autofocus camera, and a touch screen. I like that BlackBerry's offer a range of devices catering to different form factors and price points, but there should be a core OS 7 experience and users of a Curve should not have more features then a Torch (NFC)

But the problem with these 2 new devices seems to be the Canadian carriers choice of pricing more then anything. They just don't have the specs to match up against similarly priced Android and iOS offerings and won't have much appeal beyond BlackBerry fans.

I mean I've used BlackBerry phones for 12 years now since before they had phones in them and I am a fan. But I really agree with Kevin that RIM needs to be focusing right now on doing a few GREAT phones and not flooding the market with just ok phones. These two SHOULDN'T need to exist. The problem is that they do have to fill in missing features in other devices in the line up.

Posted by xqzu Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

I totally agree with you about the haters, my sentiments exactly are: Move on. Get a life. Quit your whining. Enough already. Don't let the door hit you where the sun don't shine. Besides it's not like anyone is forcing them to buy it, it's our money we should spend it as we see fit.

Posted by derekjdech Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

Everytime I see the 9790, I die a little inside

Posted by CrackBerryHarry Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

Too many phones RIM. Too many phones. What the hell are you people doing over there?

Posted by koool1 Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 189 days ago

3 year contracts are cracked.

Posted by kedi Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 188 days ago

As soon as the Curve 9380 is available in my area I will update/upgrade from my 9300 Curve 3G. Looking forward to it.