Do you know what London and Toronto have in common? Yesterday, both cities hosted BlackBerry® 7 OS launch events, welcoming the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810, 9850 and 9860 smartphones to the BlackBerry® family! Among the guests of honor were the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and 9930 smartphones, both of which are BlackBerry 7 OS devices that had previously been announced at BlackBerry World™. Of course, the Social Media team at Research In Motion® (RIM®) was on hand at these launch events to demo the smartphones and speak with attendees.

While the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones are not yet in stores, we’re eager to share these early hands-on impressions from the press, everyday shoppers and BlackBerry smartphone users. We may have provided the BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones, but these opinions are 100% their own. Once you have an opportunity to use the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 or 9930 smartphone, feel free to post a comment of your own and let us know what you think about them.

The new BB Bold 7 browser is 40% faster than before. My Bold 5 just shudder with envy. So did I. #BB7FanNight http://lockerz.com/s/126330103—
katie (@motherbumper) August 04, 2011

Very impressed with new Bold – very thin and sleek and new OS7 is super smooth on it #BB7FanNight—
Jehan Watson (@JehanWatson) August 04, 2011

#bb7fannight The 9900 defines what Blackberry is all about. The physical keyboard and touchscreen is a winning combination. @BlackBerry—
Max Fireman (@brava27) August 04, 2011

Thinnest blackberry every made also touch screen! Love the new bold 9900! #BB7FanNight http://twitpic.com/60k1tk—
Jordana Stein (@jordanastein) August 03, 2011

BlackBerry Bold 9900 impression: 4.5\5! Great response! Very very snappy! #BB7FanNight—
Michael Lam (@FindMike) August 03, 2011

#BB7FanNight. Ultra sexy my heart is beating like a disco drum for the new Blackberry BOLD baby!!—
Desiree_Todd_313 (@DesireeTodd_313) August 04, 2011

Website: TheCellularGuru

“The Browser: is now up to 40% faster than the WebKit browser found in OS6, and 100% faster than the original browser found in BlackBerry 5 devices. The new browser has the most compliant HTML5 implementation of any device on the market; we actually pitted my Rogers Nexus S browser head to head with a BlackBerry Bold 9900 at HTML5test.com – the Nexus scored a 184, while the BlackBerry Bold 9900 scored a staggering 277.”

Read more: Interview with Annu Dawar the Product Manager for BlackBerry 7 at #BB7FanNight

Website: NerdBerry

August 4 – “Following in the footsteps of the Bold 9000 the 9900 has what is probably the best BlackBerry keyboard I have used. …. The touch screen responsiveness is top notch, and can be compared to other platforms and manufacturers … The one feature that I hadn’t really thought about going into the event, but which surprised and amazed me the most, is the Wikitude browser. The Wikitude browser takes advantage of the augmented reality and is surprising cool. As you can see in the video the augmented reality can be used for several social media functions, and the integration of BBM is off the hook.”

Read more: (VIDEO) Hands On With The BlackBerry Bold 9900 At #BB7FanNight In Toronto

August 3 – “The night has been full of hands on with the new BB7 devices, like the highly anticipated Bold 9900, and I have never been more a fan. When the Torch 9800 launched I thought I had seen the pinnacle of Blackberry, but tonight I stand corrected.”

Read more: BB7FanNight In Toronto Delivers Results!

Website: CrackBerry

“I love the look and feel of the new Bold, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE KEYBOARD, and I love that there’s finally a touchscreen on a front-facing qwerty BlackBerry. The new Bold is FAST, rich looking and is just the absolute best of the traditional BlackBerry experience.”

Read more: (VIDEO) BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9930 Hands On and First Impressions (part deux)

Following the announcement of BlackBerry® 7 at the BlackBerry® World™ conference, I’m pleased to announce that the BlackBerry® Java® SDK v7.0 is now available in beta!

This new version of the SDK also comes with simulators for the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 series of smartphones, allowing you to test your applications against the latest and greatest. With the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphone on their way, you will have the tools you need to make sure your apps are running on these smartphones at launch. What’s more, the BlackBerry App World™ storefront is also accepting app submissions for these new devices! You now have the chance to be among the first to have your application submitted and ready for these exciting new products.

The BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse™ and the BlackBerry Java Development Environment have also both been updated to support the new OS version, featuring an abundance of new APIs. They’re all listed out in great detail in the “New in this Release” section of the Release Notes.

For more information on what developers need to know about BlackBerry 7 and to download the BlackBerry Java SDK v7.0 beta, check out the BlackBerry 7 landing page on BlackBerry Developer Zone.

(YouTube link for mobile viewing)

On Monday, we were excited to share with you our latest addition to the BlackBerry® Bold™ family – the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, powered by the new BlackBerry 7 OS. Onsite at BlackBerry World 2011, I got the chance to speak with Product Managers Michael and Jason to take a deeper look at the hardware and software capabilities of these powerful new devices.

Post a comment and let us know what you think of the new BlackBerry Bold smartphones! If you’re looking for more info don’t forget to check out yesterday’s announcement post for the full scoop:

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones: BlackBerry 7 with a Bold Touch

Update: Check out our hands on demo of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, with Product Managers Michael and Jason after the jump!

With BlackBerry World™ 2011 officially kicking off today, I am excited to share with you the first of many much-anticipated announcements. The iconic BlackBerry® Bold™ smartphone family has just received a powerful update with the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones driven by the BlackBerry 7 OS.

Like the BlackBerry® Torch™ smartphone, these new devices integrate brilliant, high resolution, capacitive touch screens, trackpads and full QWERTY keypads and are the thinnest BlackBerry smartphones yet. Here’s a quick look at some of the key specs for the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones.

• 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, approximately 130 g
• 2.8″ capacitive touch screen display – VGA (640×480), 287 PPI resolution
• Full, wide QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad
• 1.2 GHz Processor, 768 MB RAM
• 8 GB on-board memory, plus microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB cards
• NFC technology
• 5.0 MP camera with flash, supports 720p HD video recording
• Orientation Sensor (Accelerometer), Digital Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity Sensor
• Built-in GPS / aGPS
• Dual-Band Wi-Fi® – 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz and 802.11 a/n at 5 GHz
• Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR support
• 1230 mAh removable, rechargeable battery

Wireless Network support:
o BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone: Tri-Band HSPA+, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE
o BlackBerry Bold 9930 smartphone: Dual-Band CDMA/EVDO Rev A, Dual-Band HSPA+, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE

(YouTube link for mobile viewing)

BlackBerry 7 OS

In addition to being the first touch BlackBerry Bold smartphones, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones are also the first to feature the BlackBerry 7 OS. The BlackBerry 7 OS is a performance driven platform designed to deliver a faster and easier communication, multimedia and productivity experience for BlackBerry smartphone users. In addition to improved web browsing and universal search capabilities (now with voice-enabled search!), here is a quick rundown of some of the new functionality that the BlackBerry 7 OS powers in the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones:

• Liquid Graphics™ – The BlackBerry 7 OS delivers fast, fluid performance when browsing, accessing pictures or video, or running graphics intensive games.
• NFC – Built-in support for Near Field Communications (NFC), an exciting new technology that is designed to provide a secure exchange of information between NFC-enabled devices over a very short distance. Watch our interview with Andrew Bocking, VP Handheld Software Product Management, to learn more about BlackBerry and Near Field Communications.
• Augmented Reality – The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a built-in compass (magnetometer) to take advantage of BlackBerry 7 OS support for augmented reality applications.
• HD Video – The BlackBerry 7 OS supports up to 720p HD video recording.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones are expected to be available from carriers around the world beginning this summer. Stay tuned for additional blog posts where we dive deeper into the BlackBerry 7 OS and BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones! For now, head to the BlackBerry Bold smartphone page for the latest info.