During my time off, I celebrated my birthday by getting a new BlackBerry, the Curve 8900. While my Pearl was working just fine, I had long wanted to try a BB with a full keyboard as opposed to the two-letters-per-key that the Pearl has. RIM has been rolling out a bunch of new BBs. Among them was the Bold, which was supposed to be available on T-Mobile around now. As it turns out, the phone will not be coming to the US, although it is available on T-Mobile in the UK.

I’ve now had the unit for almost two weeks and I can say that it is definitely a keeper Built in WiFi has been wonderful, not only for making calls but also for surfing the net. (T-Mobile’s 3G network doesn’t exist here so the lack of 3G on the phone is not an issue for me.) And the phone has a faster processor – 512 MHz – so applications just zip along. The screen is awesome, even for these old eyes.

So far, I’ve only run into one problem: it doesn’t like my wireless router – at least not when it comes to playing YouTube videos. No idea why but it’s time to replace it, anyway Due to incentives offered to me as a long time T-Mobile customer, the phone ended up costing me just over $100 with a two-year contract.

If you are looking to upgrade your phone, check out the 8900. I hear that it is going to be available on other carriers soon.