RIM announces BlackBerry 7 OS with better browser and BlackBerry Balance, but no legacy support

1. ORLANDO—Retina Display, meet "liquid graphics." RIM today announced two
powerful new BlackBerry phones with high-res touch screens, fast 1.2-GHz
processors, and a new OS that offers better graphics than BlackBerrys had before.
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 are the HSPA (AT&T/T-Mobile) and
CDMA/HSPA+ (Verizon/Sprint global) versions of the same thing: a stretched-out
BlackBerry Bold with a 2.8-inch, 640-by-480 touch screen. That isn't high resolution
compared to other top-of-the-line smart phones, but it's a very rich, dense screen for
its small size.
The two phones run 1.2-GHz Qualcomm processors and have 8GB of storage, 5-
megapixel cameras with 720p HD video recording, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
The phones also have built-in NFC, the much-touted technology that could enable
phones to be used as mobile wallets, if banks ever decide to support it. NFC may have
applications in businesses, though, for things like proximity-based ID cards.
The new BlackBerry 7 OS brings the "liquid graphics" ability, which we're sure to
hear more about at the BlackBerry World trade show later today. According to RIM's
press release, it offers "60 frames per second performance with instant UI
action/response," which doesn't necessarily mean anything. We'll have to see how it
performs in demos today.
Rather than being an entirely new OS, BlackBerry 7 is an upgrade to the existing
BlackBerry 6 OS. It's "designed to power the new BlackBerry Bold platform"—
implying it may not work on earlier phones—and it adds better graphics capabilities, a
faster browser, and BlackBerry Balance, which lets users segregate personal from
business content on their smart phones.

2. In a Tweet, T-Mobile USA confirmed that it will carry the BlackBerry Bold 9900. The
phone will come out "this summer," RIM said. We'll have a full hands-on of the phone
later today.