Research In Motion is adding another smartphone to its BlackBerry lineup. The new BlackBerry Tour is aimed at both executives and mainstream consumers. The new model is known as the BlackBerry Tour and falls somewhere between the BlackBerry Curve, which has proved very popular with consumers, and the BlackBerry Bold, which RIM has aimed at high-end corporate users.

The new BlackBerry Tour smartphone offers communications and multimedia capabilities.

The BlackBerry Tour smartphone allows customers to stay connected - across town and around the world. It supports high-speed 3G EV-DO Rev. A networks in North America, as well as 3G UMTS/HSPA (2100Mhz) and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks abroad.

The new smartphone also provides the industry?s leading mobile solution for email, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and social networking together with built-in GPS and advanced multimedia capabilities.

The BlackBerry Tour features a chic black finish with chrome highlights surrounding its sleek design (112mm x 62mm x 14.2mm and 130g). It includes a full-QWERTY keyboard with chrome frets and finely sculpted keys for fast and precise typing. In addition, the 2.44" display (480 x 360 resolution at 245 ppi) delivers the highest resolution available on a BlackBerry smartphone.



Other key features of the BlackBerry Tour smartphone include:

- 3.2 MP camera with flash, variable zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording
- Full HTML web browser, including support for streaming audio and video (RTSP)
- Media player for videos, pictures and music, a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and support for the Bluetooth Stereo Audio Profile (A2DP/AVCRP)
- 256MB Flash memory
- Expandable memory via hot swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot, supporting cards of up to 16 GB today and expected to support next generation 32GB cards when available
- Built-in GPS with support for geotagging, BlackBerry Maps and other location based applications and services
- BlackBerry Media Sync allows customers to synch music from iTunes and Windows Media Player with the smartphone
- Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, enhanced background noise cancellation, a low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals
- Preloaded DataViz Documents to Go, allowing users to edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
- Mobile access to Facebook, MySpace and Flickr, as well as popular instant messaging services including BlackBerry Messenger, Yahoo! IM, AIM, Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger
- Support for BlackBerry App World, featuring a growing catalog of third-party mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones.
- BlackBerry Internet Service allows access to up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts
- BlackBerry Enterprise Server provides advanced security and IT administration features within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise environments
- Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery for 5 hours of talk time and 14 days of standby time

The BlackBerry Tour smartphone (model number: 9630) is expected to be available this summer from carriers in North America.