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Where will the BlackBerry Niagara land?

Boy Genius Report gets a hands-on look at the RIM BlackBerry Niagara, but the question remains which U.S. carrier will offer the smartphone.

Bonnie Cha Former Editor
Bonnie Cha was a former chief correspondent for CNET Crave, covering every kind of tech toy imaginable (with a special obsession for robots and Star Wars-related stuff). When she's not scoping out stories, you can find her checking out live music or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.
Bonnie Cha
Boy Genius Report

AT&T and T-Mobile customers have gotten their fix of BlackBerry goodness with the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Curve 8900, respectively, but Verizon Wireless and Sprint subscribers are wondering when they'll get that same kind of QWERTY love. Well, we can't say when it'll happen but it looks like the love will come in the form of the RIM BlackBerry 9630 aka BlackBerry Niagara.

The Boy Genius Report managed to snag an early (not final) version of the dual-mode (CDMA/GSM) BlackBerry 9630 and posted some initial thoughts about the smartphone. In the report, BGR states that it's "probably the best phone we've ever used" in terms of call quality. He also likens the BlackBerry hardware to the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Bold, with a high-resolution display (480x360 pixels) and a QWERTY keyboard that's "just right." The big disappointment? No Wi-Fi.

At the end, BGR said that he's "pretty confident" that the 9630 will head to Verizon first. We can't say for sure if this is true; we haven't heard anything official from RIM or Verizon. However, if this is the case, we're pretty confident in saying that Sprint will get its own version. The big question in both cases is when. The 2009 CTIA spring show is just a few days away though (April 1-3), so hopefully we'll get more information there.