BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider coming next month as an AT&T exclusive?

We've still got thousands of unanswered questions (well, maybe not thousands, but definitely dozens) about RIM's upcoming BlackBerry 6 platform -- and it's starting to look like we might be answering those questions at retail by way of this Bold 9800 slider that's been making the rounds lately. BGR claims that the handset is lining up for a mid- to late-June release on AT&T, with the carrier having placed a substantial million-plus unit order to lock it up as an exclusive for some undetermined length of time (much as Verizon has managed to do both with the Storm and the Storm2). We hate to point out the obvious, but from a PR perspective, June's not the best month to be announcing and / or releasing anything that isn't an iPhone -- and when you look at the 9800's form factor and the baby steps that BlackBerry 6 seems to make toward boosting consumer appeal, we don't think you can make an argument that this is a sufficiently different market segment the same way you could with, say, the 9700. In other words: we wouldn't be shocked to see this date slip a bit, assuming the rumor pans out.

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BlackBerry 9650 spotted in the wild again, 'Bold' branding confirmed

The Tour branding never made a lot of sense -- RIM's most recently-released high-end portrait QWERTY device for CDMA networks occupies the same market position as the Bold over on GSM networks, so the name difference is kind of arbitrary and more than just a little bit confusing. It's all good, though, because CrackBerry has confirmation here that the Tour's replacement -- the 9650 -- is going to be wearing a Bold badge loud and proud around back by the 3.2 megapixel camera. It's not clear exactly when Sprint and Verizon are going to launch this sucker, but it's patently obvious that they both will -- it's just a matter of time -- so you may as well start prepping your eulogy for that infernal trackball now.

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