BlackBerry Curve 8900 Release Date Changed

the Feb. 18 release date leaked in December.

Popular gadget blog Boy Genius Report, citing T-Mobile insiders, wrote today that the date has been moved up a week. The blog also posted pictures of the device taken inside a T-Mobile retail store.

The Curve 8900 is poised to mark BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion's (RIM) first high-profile smartphone release of the new year, following a string of hot devices that hit the market in the second half of 2008.

Already available in Canada and the U.K., the Curve 8900 got the stamp of approval from the FCC here in November. Some smartphone users are calling it the kid brother to the high-end BlackBerry Bold 9000.

The quad-band Curve 8900 offers Edge support with built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, a 512MHz next-generation processer, a full QWERTY keyboard and a 2.4-inch, 480 x 360 high-resolution display. The Curve 8900 also marks the thinnest smartphone in BlackBerry's history to offer a full QWERTY keyboard, just a bit more than a half-inch thick. While the Curve 8900 lacks high-speed 3G support, it wraps in a 3.2-megapixel camera and BlackBerry OS version 4.6.

The new Curve also integrates all of the business e-mail, messaging, calendaring, document viewing and editing features that have made BlackBerry a corporate staple while tying in a host of multimedia functions, such as a media player, that make it an appealing device to consumers as well.