Look, we know how it is. Waiting, twiddling those thumbs for John Mayer's moment to become one that you too can experience. Thankfully, the Boy Genius has caved to requests to show off what exactly the Bold's browser can do, a point of interest for many, we're certain. There are even a few comparison shots to Mobile Safari just for reference. Overall, things don't look too bad from photographs alone, but hit up the read link to form your own opinion.

Remember that time Vodafone was targeting May for the launch of the BlackBerry Bold? Yeah, those were the days! Let's not dwell on the past, though -- no use crying over spilled milk, our mommies always used to say. Instead, let's focus on exactly when Vodafone thinks it can launch the Bold now, which happens to be August -- and this time, the word comes from an official Voda website that was intended for public consumption, so they have more eyeballs on it and more liability if they miss the date. Thing is, the description of the phone lists the Sony Ericsson W980i, not the Bold, so maybe there's just a little smidge of buffoonery going on behind the scenes. August sounds totally plausible, though, so we're sticking with it until we hear otherwise.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Update: It's been updated to July -- sweet. It's like the opposite of a delay!

See that image above? Yeah, that's a sexy new side angle of RIM's BlackBerry Bold, and it's coming to us courtesy of AT&T. Just as Sprint did with its fashionable Instinct, AT&T is launching a promotional site for the forthcoming BlackBerry in order to drum up interest and get you (re)informed. Straight from the carrier's mouth, we've got GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA support, integrated WiFi / GPS, 480 x 320 resolution display, a side-loaded memory slot, 1GB of built-in storage, a 624MHz CPU, 128MB of Flash memory, Bluetooth 2.0 with handsfree support and up to 5-hours of GSM talk time (13 days in standby). You'll notice that the operator makes no mention of an exact release date, but we're crossing our fingers and sticking to that leaked July timeframe until we hear otherwise.

[Thanks, Daryl]

We had heard that the introduction of the BlackBerry Bold (9000) / Thunder (9500) could usher in the long-awaited BlackBerry OS 4.6, and now we're just about ready to believe it. A new listing over at Horizon Wireless Online details the forthcoming operating system, and notes that it will bring along richer browsing (which entails a whole host of improvements), click zooming with the trackball, Music Sync, an option to select Home screen grid size and support for continuous spell checking (among other things). Hey RIM, can we get that "richer browsing experience" on say, the Curve / Pearl?

[Thanks, Peter]

It was simply inevitable: someone was going to lay the iPhone and BlackBerry Bold down beside one another, and if John Mayer won't stop sending himself emails long enough to do it, CrackBerry's sister site will. There's really nothing here that you couldn't put together yourself from checking out galleries and videos of each device separately, but feel free to humor your sick mind by glancing over the comparative images in the read link below or examining the vid waiting after the jump.

RIM's hotly-anticipated BlackBerry Bold has only been received by a select few, but the fortunate folks over at Howard Chui managed to snag a pre-production unit and give it a good lookin' at. Aside from showering us with a plethora of snapshots from a variety of angles, we're also told that the plastic used "feels a little cheaper" than that on the 8800, outgoing sound quality "is terrific," incoming sound quality could use some work and reception seemed much improved from the 8800. We know, it's not a full-blown review or anything, but it's still apt to whet your appetite until the real deal shows up en masse.

TmoNews has published a laundry list of devices that it says will launch between June 16 and August 1 -- 13, to be exact, with another three that aren't listed. That's a positively Japan-esque release pace, a breakneck schedule that we're having a hard time believing. To its credit, several launches that are known or well-rumored to be in the pipe are listed here, including the Motorola E8, Shadow II, Samsung t229 and t339, and Nokia 5610, but to its discredit, fanciful devices like an alleged Shadow III are also in the mix along with the BlackBerry Bold, which AT&T has an exclusive on following its launch over there that should easily prevent T-Mob from picking it up by August 1. Of course, there could be some wiggle room on those dates, and again, most of these devices seem totally plausible -- but for now we've got to file this squarely in the "we want to believe" category.

[Thanks, Chris W.]

Well, like any other BlackBerry Bold, of course -- save for that AT&T logo down there and a custom skin that owners are sure to quickly replace. Unless you're John Mayer, this'll have to do for the time being.

[Thanks, Sunil M.]

See how easy it is everyone? All that's required to snag a BlackBerry Bold well before its public release is to become a Grammy award-winning artist, sell out shows worldwide, date a smattering of superstars and convince Fender to create and sell your own branded guitar. While you're off working on step one, John Mayer is living it up with his brand new BlackBerry Bold. Granted, he can't claim to be the very first with said handset, but it's likely the first completely legitimate edition let loose. Of course, once you've landed the Curve and MacBook Air before everyone else on the planet, snagging a Bold is just child's play.

Everyone knows that nobody buys a BlackBerry for its musical prowess, right? Au contraire, dearest email addict. RIM is currently working up a new application for BlackBerry smartphones that will "transfer your desktop iTunes music files" to your BB for those rare moments when you can actually kick back and enjoy the soothing sounds of Rogue Wave. Interestingly, we're not told whether BlackBerry Media Sync is being crafted specifically for the upcoming Bold, and we're also left to wonder when it'll actually be released. Patience is a virtue -- at least that's the word heard through the grapevine.

[Via CNET]

Canada, HSDPA. What's the first carrier that comes to mind? No, not Fido, silly -- Rogers, of course! Makes a lot of sense, then, that Canada's GSM behemoth would be getting dibs on RIM's HSDPA-compatible hotness, the Bold -- not to say we didn't expect it, anyway -- and a new page posted over on Rogers' site encourages interested individuals to sign up to be notified when the device becomes available in their neck of the woods. Unfortunately, there's nary a clue here on exactly when Rogers customers will be able to mosey into the store of their choice and pick one up, but "summer" is a safe (and vague) bet.

[Thanks, Gurkiran]

Granted, we haven't heard anything thus far about which carrier would be offering up the recently-made-official BlackBerry Bold, but we can't say we're too shocked to hear that it will indeed be AT&T. In a report highlighting the recent boost in RIM's stock price, it's noted that AT&T will be "the exclusive carrier for the Bold in the US," though we have all ideas the other major US carriers will be following suit shortly, probably with redubbed handsets. We know, you're hungry for a price to mull over, but sadly, it's not meal time just yet.

Damn, took 'em long enough! RIM finally announced the BlackBerry Bold / 9000 -- we've got specs, but no price or hard launch date. Here we go:

• Family will include HSDPA and EV-DO versions (including an AWS-capable 1700MHz version), much as we'd heard
  
• 480 x 320 display
• 625MHz CPU, 1GB internal flash memory
• 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 (with A2Dp), GPS, MicroSDHC
• 480 x 320 video recording, photo geotagging
• 4.5 x 2.6 x 0.55-inches, 4.7 ounces

PC Mag's got the (latest) hands-on, hit the read link.

Now that the BlackBerry 9000's been outed and reviewed, we guess there's little left for RIM to do but just get official with the darned thing. Looks like that might actually happen as soon as next week, with Boy Genius Report claiming that it'll happen on Monday, May 12, the first day of the Wireless Enterprise Symposium, going down in sunny Orlando. 'Course, there's a pretty significant difference between announcing a product and actually getting it into would-be buyers' hands, so we're going to keep our party favors and noisemakers firmly stowed until some carriers start to step up to the plate.