BlackBerry 8xxx = BlackBerry 9000?

It seems that we were extremely enthusiastic, much-too-happily excited, somewhat disappointed, and possibly destroyed when news broke that Research In Motion would be releasing the next BlackBerry as yet another 8000 series device, delaying the eventual birth-by-hatching of the 9000 series legacy.

Well, it appears that our previous information announcing the full specifications of the BlackBerry 9000, featuring only 2.5G EDGE technology, has been updated to include UMTS and HSDPA support. This is official information from RIM. As if it weren’t indicative from the Vodafone slides featured on this website a couple weeks ago that the carrier did not have finalized information for the 3G BlackBerry device due out in Q2, it is now apparent the feature device likely to be launched at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2008 will be the BlackBerry 9000 as opposed to another BlackBerry 8000 series release. Sorry for those reporting it as the BlackBerry 8500 or BlackBerry 8920.

With that said, we’d like to make note of one more announcement from this crop of new information received. A new era of OS has now been introduced into the Waterloo storyline - version 5.0.0. Excited yet? We thought so. We foresee the BlackBerry 9000 launching with OS 4.3.2, as previously reported on BGR, but will have an update to OS 5.0.0 by the end of the year. Our early bets are on November. As mentioned previously with regards to OS 4.3.2 and future legacy devices, the new version will be supported on the 8100, 8300 and 8800 series handhelds, with the highly acclaimed 8700 series being retired after the upcoming OS 4.3.1 release. Unfortunately, as this new OS is literally only a couple days young, we cannot speculate on potential features and enhancements that will be present when it’s finally launched.