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ONLINE RETAILER Clove has announced that the Blackberry Bold 9790 smartphone is now in stock.

The latest handset from Research in Motion (RIM) unexpectedly turned up and is now available to purchase. It remains on pre-order across other online retailers’ web sites, having been due 20 January at Clove.

Chris Ward, digital media coordinator at Clove told The INQUIRER, “The handset came in this morning surprisingly. We weren’t expecting it until the end of the week. Not sure why the date came forward, it may be that the shipping plan was over estimated or something.”

If you’re eager to get your hands on the latest in the Blackberry Bold line then it can be yours for £342 SIM free. This is more than £120 less than the Bold 9900, which sells for £466 at Clove.

The Bold 9790 offers a 2.45in touchscreen combined with a Qwerty keyboard. It’s powered by a 1GHz processor and comes with 768MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. It runs Blackberry OS 7 but RIM’s customers will be getting an update soon.

If you want it on a contract then sit tight because the Blackberry Bold 9790 is still sitting on the coming soon web pages at O2, Orange and Three. µ

CANADIAN PHONE MAKER Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry Bold 9790 smartphone is available to pre-order at online retailers.

This latest handset offering from RIM is available for pre-order online with a price tag of around £340. Online retailer Expansys will offer it first on 18 January on a SIM free basis, followed closely by Clove on 20 January.

Phones 4U also has the Blackberry Bold 9790 available for pre-order on different tariffs with a delivery date of 30 January. Its rival The Carphone Warehouse has just a pre-registration web page.

A longer wait is in store for you if you head to Amazon, which quotes an availability date of 14 February. If you want to go direct to the mobile operators then you’ll have to wait, as the handset is still sitting on the coming soon web pages of O2, Orange and Three.

RIM announced the Blackberry Bold 9790 smartphone along with the Blackberry Curve 9380 back in November, when it said the pair would be released within the “coming weeks”. The Blackberry Curve 9380 is already available for around £275.

The Blackberry Bold 9790 adheres to the typical Blackberry style with a 2.45in touchscreen and a Qwerty keyboard. It’s powered by a 1GHz processor and comes with 768MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.

Compared to another one of RIM’s latest handsets, the Blackberry Bold 9900, the Blackberry Bold 9790 is around £120 less expensive. Users will get the bonus of an operating system update to version 7.1, which the firm announced this week at the consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas. µ

SECURITY RESEARCHERS have discovered a flaw in Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry Playbook Bridge software that allows data to be intercepted.

Ben Nell and Zach Lanier, consultants at mobile security firm Intrepidus Group, have found that an attacker can gain access to the Bridge connection and steal email along with other data. They announced their findings at the Infiltrate conference yesterday, according to Threatpost.com.

An authentication token sent between a Blackberry smartphone and a Blackberry Playbook is put in a readable place that a hacker can access by using a malicious app. Grabbing this token gives the attacker remote access to the Playbook’s files.

“While the bridge is active, the token is in a place that is essentially world readable. The .all file being in a place that is world readable is the thing that causes the problem with the Bridge sessions,” said Lanier.

Blackberry Bridge involves a Playbook tablet communicating wirelessly with a Blackberry smartphone via a Bluetooth connection. It is touted as a big selling point for the tablet.

At this year’s consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas RIM announced new versions of its operating systems, Blackberry 7.1 and Blackberry Playbook 2.0. RIM has told The INQUIRER that these versions will fix the problem.

RIM said, “The Blackberry Playbook issue described at the Infiltrate security conference has been resolved with Blackberry Playbook OS 2.0, which is scheduled to be available as a free download to customers in February 2012.”

“There are no known exploits and risk is mitigated by the fact that a user would need to install and run a malicious application after initiating a Blackberry Bridge connection with their Blackberry smartphone.”

For a closer look at the upcoming RIM operating systems check out our video demo from CES. µ

THE PRICE of the Research in Motion (RIM) Playbook tablet has been slashed to as low as £250 by Currys owner DSG Group.

Currys, Dixons and PC World, all part of DSG Group, have cut the price of the Blackberry Playbook 16GB model tablet to £250, down £150 from their previous price of £399.

An initial check showed that Amazon is also selling the tablet at lower than its original price tag, at £269. Meanwhile, the Playbook is more expensive at Play.com and Carphone Warehouse, which are selling the tablet at £379 and £399, respectively.

In September, we reported that RIM had cut the price of its Playbook tablet in the US and Europe in an apparent copycat tactic to HP’s recent discount on its Touchpad.

Best Buy in the US axed 0 off the price of the 64GB version of the Blackberry Playbook and cut off the prices of the 16GB and 32GB models.

The Playbook has suffered from poor sales. The firm’s Q2 results revealed that it shipped just 200,000 of the devices in its second quarter, down from 500,000 in the first quarter.

The problem for RIM is not just slow sales, but a lack of network support, particularly in the US, where it has failed to secure a major network deal. µ

A MAJOR FAULT at Canadian Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) services has cut off the internet for millions of its users in Europe, Asia and Africa.

According to the Telegraph, a glitch struck at about 11am and the areas affected are served by a RIM data centre in Slough, UK.

Users could not access instant messages, the internet or email. Those who accessed a corporate server were not affected.

T-Mobile said on Twitter, “There is an issue with Blackberry services at present. RIM are investigating this at present.”

Vodafone Egypt told its Twitter followers, “there is Blackberry outage, it’s from RIM side.”

RIM told us, “We are working to resolve an issue currently impacting some BlackBerry subscribers in Europe Middle East and Africa. We’re investigating, and we apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused whilst this is resolved.” µ

CANADIAN MOBILE PHONE OUTFIT Research in Motion (RIM) is in talks with four major record labels to start a Blackberry music service.

The company has struck a deal with at least one of the four – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music – according to Cnet. A test version of the service could go live within the next few weeks.

RIM told The INQUIRER, “BBM is a dynamic social platform and one of the largest mobile social networks in the world with over 45 Million BBM users. However, I’m unable to comment on this specific report as RIM’s standard policy is to decline comment on rumours and speculation.”

It is unclear exactly how the service will work with the Blackberry messaging service (BBM), which is the main reason that the handsets are popular with young people. The service will be announced by the time Labour Day comes in the US on 5 September, according to Reuters.

Details are thin on the ground but we suspect the service will be similar to the popular Spotify, with users being able to stream music to mobile devices. The service is likely to offer both free and paid subscriptions, we reckon.

It is unclear whether the service will be available on RIM’s Playbook tablet, which only has access to BBM when paired with a Blackberry handset.

RIM launched its latest handset, the Bold 9900 recently, which was supposed to be available from the beginning of Summer. The firm must be hoping that it, along with the new lure of the music service will get its sales back in shape after a shaky start to the year that saw poor results and the layoff of 2,000 employees.

Music continues to be an attractive element for consumers with rival phone maker HTC recently buying a major stake in Beats Electronics. This move could reignite RIM’s smartphone campaign, if it gains traction. µ

THE BLACKBERRY Bold 9900 has been delayed by four days, according to recent reports.

According to online retailer Clove’s blog, it originally expected the Blackberry Bold 9900 to arrive on Monday 15 August, but stock will be now be delayed until Friday 19 August.

Apparently, this delay will apply to all UK BlackBerry stock.

Clove promised Blackberry fans, “We will still be one of the first online vendors to receive stock of the 9900 next Friday. As always we will begin shipping orders the day that stock arrives subject to the time that it actually gets here.”

At the start of this month Research in Motion (RIM) announced its “biggest launch ever” of two Bold and three Torch models along with its Blackberry 7 operating system (OS).

All of the smartphones including the thin Bold 9900 have a 1.2GHz processor, HD video calling, 24-bit high resolution graphics and advanced sensors supporting augmented reality apps such as Wikitube.

RIM’s Blackberry 7 OS apparently introduces a significantly faster web browser that RIM claims delivers a “more fluid” browsing experience. Other features include zooming and panning plus optimised HTML5 performance for better gaming and video responsiveness. µ

RESEARCH IN MOTION’S Blackberry Torch 2 retains the same hybrid touch-screen and keypad design as its predecessor, with the majority of changes under the hood.

RIM will ship the 3.2in smartphone with a 1.2GHz processor, 8GB of internal storage and Blackberry OS 7.

The handset is aimed at those who like a large touch screen alongside the traditional Qwerty keyboard.

The Torch 2 is set to go on sale in the UK during September, and will be available on major networks. Pricing is yet to be confirmed. µ

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THE BLACKBERRY Torch 9860 will come with a 3.7in touch-screen display, the largest that RIM has to offer. The device is optimised for video and internet browsing, and has no physical keyboard.

A 1.2GHz processor will power the BlackBerry 7 OS handset, and other features include GPS and a 5MP rear camera with HD 720p video recording capabilities.

RIM expects to start shipping the Torch 9860 in September. The manufacturer said that all major networks will carry the device, with prices at a mid-tier level expected to be somewhere between the Bold Touch 9900 and Blackberry Torch 2 9810. µ