The BlackBerry Bold 9790 should be an ideal upgrade to anyone who owned a Curve or Bold 9700 in the past, it is not quite as impressive as the Bold 9900, in fact you would find it pretty hard to tell the 9700 and 9790 apart in terms of aesthetics, but ‘beneath the hood’ there’s lots of reasons why the 9790 is a worthy upgrade – most noticeably this shiny new BlackBerry runs OS 7, which is snappier and far more intuitive than previous versions.

In terms of technical specifications there’s a 1 GHz Marvel processor, a physical QWERTY keyboard, 768MB RAM, a 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD memory card which supports cards of 32GB, a 2.45-inch touchscreen display which outputs at 360 x 480, WiFi b/g/n, NFC and Bluetooth connectivity – you can see a full breakdown of tech specs and features here. As for size it measures in at 110 x 60 x 11.4 mm and weighs 107 grams.

So how much will Three charge you for this smartphone? Well as usual you can buy it outright and opt for a pay as you go deal, but this will mean you pay £319.99 for the handset. Alternatively there’s a few different 24-month deals to check out, all of which ensure that you get the Bold 9790 for free as part of the agreement.

You can see full pricing details over at Three’s website, we’ve embedded an image below which pretty much summarizes the options available:

As you can see there’s options to suit most people. Personally I would opt for the Text 500 All-you-can-eat tariff, paying £31 for all-you-can-eat data is something I’d be interested in and 5,000 texts is a lot, also as I don’t talk a lot on the phone 500 minutes should be adequate.

My only issue is that the price tag does seem a little high, the Lumia 710 is a lot cheaper than this and Windows Phone 7.5 is arguably superior to BlackBerry OS 7 (not in regards to enterprise usage), make you mind up and tell us what you decided to buy!

We first heard about the BlackBerry Bold 9790 late last year alongside the Curve 9380. Now pricing for the Bold 9790 has been made available for UK consumers, and according to a report on recombu is available for free from £21.50 per month.

Retailer Phones 4U has revealed a variety of contract prices for the new BlackBerry with the £21.50 per month contract available from O2 over two years. This provides 100 minutes of talk time, 500 texts, and 500MB of data and BlackBerry email.

Rival carrier Orange will also let you have the Bold 9790 for free if you agree to a 24 month contract priced at £25 per month, which will provide you with 500 minutes of talk time and 3,000 texts. You will also get 500MB of data with BlackBerry Messenger.

Vodafone also will let you have the handset free with a contract for £36 per month that gives you 300 minutes, 3,000 texts, and 500MB of data that includes BlackBerry. The handset is available to order now for delivery on the 30th of January.

Meanwhile if you want the handset unlocked to any carrier Clove will sell it to you for £342, with a shipping date of January 20th. To recap the Bold 9790 has a 2.45-inch touchscreen with a full size QWERTY keyboard, and is powered by a 1GHz processor. It has 768MB of RAM with 8GB of on-board storage. It will come running BlackBerry OS 7 but will be updated to OS 7.1 in the future.

Are you thinking of buying a new BlackBerry handset?

Both devices have been speculated about for ages now, and according to Electronista both of them will be available on various carriers globally in the coming weeks. First up we have the premium looking BlackBerry Bold 9790 that is powered by a single core 1GHz processor. It comes with 8GB of inbuilt RAM, while a microSD card port can boost this up by an additional 32GB.

Display wise it has a 2.44-inch touchscreen sporting 360 x 480 resolutions, while the BlackBerry Curve 9380 is the first in the Curve line to be an all touchscreen device. This has a display that is a 3.2-inch captive unit with 480 x 360 resolutions. This handset will come sporting a five megapixel camera partnered with a LED flash and video recording.

Strangely RIM has not revealed any other specifications of the handsets, but they will both come running RIMs BlackBerry 7 operating system. This brings an improved browser with voice search features, and both handsets will support NFC technology and augmented reality applications.

Pricing and availability have been promised in the coming days, but it remains to be seen if these new handsets have enough to tempt consumers onto the BlackBerry platform. Are you tempted by the Bold 9790 or Curve 9380?