December 9, 2008

O2 to Launch BlackBerry Curve 8900 Smartphone in the UK

London, UK - O2 today announces that the new BlackBerry® Curve™ 8900 smartphone will be available for pre-registration in the UK from December 10th and pre-order from December 22nd from the O2 website:  www.o2.co.uk/blackberry.  The BlackBerry Curve 8900 will be available to customers from 5th January 2009.

A sleek, new twist on a classic style, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the thinnest BlackBerry® smartphone yet.  With its powerful communications functionality and rich multimedia capabilities, the smartphone enables people to remain productive and entertained while on the move.

The new BlackBerry Curve 8900, as well as being an exceptional phone with email, messaging, organizer, web browser and multimedia applications, also features built-in Wi-Fi®, GPS including BlackBerry® Maps, a fast processor and a dazzling hi-resolution display that gives users an enjoyable and exceptional communications experience.

The stylish new BlackBerry Curve 8900 has a full featured media player that supports media streaming and can play all your favourite songs and videos. With a 3.2 megapixel camera, auto focus, digital zoom and flash, you can take sharp, print quality pictures that you can send straight to friends or post directly onto the Internet.

Steve Alder, General Manager Group and UK Devices for Telefónica O2 UK said “The BlackBerry Curve 8310 was one of our fastest selling handsets and we are pleased to offer our customers yet another fantastic smartphone from RIM, the BlackBerry Curve 8900. It is ideal for both business customers and consumers who want the functionality of a smartphone in a sleek, slim form that feels great in your hand.”

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is approximately 110 grams and 109 x 60 13.5 mm. Its large, striking, 2.4 inch HVGA+ display projects vivid colour and makes information easier to read. 

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 will range from free to £234 depending on tariffs and is supported by O2 for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server and BlackBerry® Internet Service.

For corporate users BlackBerry Enterprise Server tightly integrates with IBM® Lotus® Domino®, Microsoft® Exchange and Novell® GroupWise® and uses advanced encryption and IT policy controls to enable secure, push-based wireless access to email and other corporate data.

BlackBerry Internet Service is designed for smaller businesses and individuals. It allows customers to access up to 10 supported corporate and personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts such as, Yahoo! Mail and Google Mail) from a single device.

Technical Data

• Preloaded DataViz® Documents to Go®  allows users to edit Microsoft® Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
• A sleek, new twist on a classic style with a large 2.4-inch, HGVA+, 480x360-pixel display with light sensor
• 3.2 megapixel camera, with variable zoom, auto focus, image stabilization and a powerful flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video
• Built-in assisted and autonomous GPS
• 256MB Flash memory and a microSD®/microSDHC® memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage
• A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth® 2.0 stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls
• Quad band support for GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• 512 MHz processor
• It features a full QWERTY keyboard and is the thinnest full QWERTY BlackBerry smartphone
• Extend your wideband coverage with its built-in Wi-Fi support (802.11 b/g)
• 1400 mAh removable/rechargeable battery with 5.5 hours of talk time and 356 hours/15 days of standby time

About O2

• Telefónica O2 UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 19.1 million mobile customers and over 260,000 fixed broadband customers as at 30 September 2008. 
• Telefónica O2 UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc which is a business division of Telefónica S.A. and which owns O2 in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 44.9 million customers.
• In 2006 Telefónica Europe acquired Be, the UK fixed broadband provider, and in October 2007 O2 launched its broadband service using the Be network.
• O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.
• O2 was ranked the 6th best place to work in the Best Companies to Work for 2008 List and has been awarded a three-star accreditation denoting an ’extraordinary’ company.
• O2 was launched on 1 May 2002 and now has more customers than any other UK mobile network. 
• O2’s UK mobile network covers 99% of the UK’s population.  O2’s 3G network covers over 80% of the UK population and is fully HSDPA-enabled, providing speeds of up to 1.8 MBps for customers with an HSDPA-enabled device.
• • Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of the Tesco Mobile and Tchibo Mobilfunk joint venture businesses in the UK and Germany. 
• For b-roll footage of O2, please visit www.digitalnewsagency.com
• For further press information about O2 go to http://mediacentre.o2.co.uk

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