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BlackBerry Bold Delayed Again?

Arg. If you believe the Boy Genius Report, it looks like the BlackBerry Bold will be delayed again in the United States until Oct. 2. If true, this is truly disappointing news.

If you've been following, you know that the handset was supposed to come out in July and go toe-to-toe with the iPhone 3G. But the device continued to get delays, and it could be another month before CrackBerry addicts get their latest fix.

Of course, it's only U.S. addicts being deprived so far, as the Bold is available in Canada, Chile, and other places.

So what's the problem? Research In Motion remains tight-lipped, as does the exclusive carrier AT&T. There's speculation that the first delays were due to battery issue, and a Citigroup analyst recently said the company delayed the U.S. release because of 3G reception issues. If you've been following the hubbub with the iPhone 3G's reception, I guess it's a better move to delay the Bold and make sure it works properly.

But if you can be patient, it looks like you will be rewarded because the Bold appears to be a fantastic device. I haven't played with it yet (Come on, RIM, show some love), but the guys at Gizmodo have reviewed an import unit and they were impressed:

This is RIM's best phone ever. Does that mean it's the phone for you? If you're a BlackBerry fanatic, yes -- it really is the phone you've been waiting for, if you're not hoping RIM radically changed the recipe. Because they didn't. It's cleaner and brighter, but it's not an overhaul by any means. It's a more powerful and beautiful distillation of the same experience.

They were especially taken with the screen, which sports a potentially gorgeous 480-by-320 display. The Bold also has integrated Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G network capabilities, full browser, multimedia options, and all the e-mail goodness you'd expect from a BlackBerry.

Pretty screen or not, I wonder if business users will wait for this. It's probably a different market, but I'm sure some potential Bold users have imbibed the Kool-Aid and bought an iPhone 3G by now. Additionally, Nokia and Palm have rolled out some strong business-class smartphones that may not be as pretty, but, well, they're actually available.

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