Blackberry comes out with a Blackberry Bold 9700 available with T-Mobile and AT&T. The best way to describe it is a slimmer Bold 9000 or a beefed up Blackberry Curve. It is slimmer than its predecessor and has a better camera – 3.2 megapixels; and the most notable change of all is the replacement of the Blackberry trackball to an optical trackpad for navigation.

The T-Mobile users have an additional joy for them to cheer about. This being their first 3G blackberry, but additionally this comes with a feature that allows seamless unlimited calling over Wi- Fi networks just for a sum of $10 a month.

The old Bold is still available on the market, RIM chief executive Mike Lazaridis said "We're not discontinuing the current Bold. The current Bold is in a class by itself. But just like we have different Curves, we have different Bolds. This is the Bold for those that wanted it just a little smaller, but still wanted the Bold look, feel, performance and materials."

In the bigger picture, it is highly unlikely Bold would make a dent at the place that Apple’s iPhone holds in the smartphone market.

In the shadow of the Droid, Cliq, and other emerging devices, the Bold 9700 is almost a non-story. It's yet another incremental step for a company that has done well with incremental steps so far. Both AT&T and T-Mobile will carry the Bold 9700 in November, at a price of $199.99 and a two year contract.