Today is the North American launch of the BlackBerry Bold and here in Toronto Rogers and RIM teamed up for a little media presentation (they had balloons!) where John Boynton, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer for Rogers Wireless hailed it as the fastest BlackBerry on the fastest network, assuring that his companies recent empirical studies contradict any claims recently made by Bell suggesting otherwise. Patrick Spence, Vice President,RIM spoke on the importance of launching the phone here in Canada, his company's home at the same time as in the American market. RIM describes the Bold as a "Premium BlackBerry", one that will sell for $600 or if you're willing to commit to a three-year plan packaged with a data plan that's more than $45 per month, you can buy it for $400. Other contract options and standard BlackBerry rates are also available.

Update: Futureshop has contacted me to confirm that they will have the Bold at their stores tomorrow morning across the country. Earlier this week I reported that it would probably be only a few stores to get the phones today, with the rest selling them tomorrow (today Rogers Senior Vice President John Boynton countered that by openly declaring the phone available at stores today). It appears that the Bold shipments missed their retail delivery dates and things have become confused as a result.

John Boynton, Senior Vice President, Rogers

The Bold is a larger handset than past BlackBerry designs, but that's to accommodate a larger, vibrant screen and still keep the QWERTY keyboard and pearl scrollbar. In addition to playing videos with exceptional clarity, the larger screen also allows the handset to use a new interface with a better layout and friendlier design. Features include HSDPA (3G) data speeds, Wi-Fi, GPS navigation, 1 GB on-board memory, 2 Megapixel camera with flash and video recording, and fast processors that keep the menu interfaces switching quickly and the applications loading with speed. Included is RIM's new Media Sync computer desktop software which allows you to trasnfer your non-DRM iTunes music to the handset.

Patrick Spence, Vice President,RIM

I will have a detailed review up within the coming days, for now I will say that it is an extremely well-designed handset, everything flows and works smoothly and so far as I can tell, with no serious sacrifices or half-measures of any kind. Menus and applications load quickly, videos and music play back with surprising quality, and the interface is among the most attractive I've experienced.

Here's the full list of features:

• Measurements are 114mm x 66mm x 15mm and weighing approximately 136 grams

• Tri-band HSDPA and quad-band EDGE support for global roaming

• Half-VGA (480x320 resolution at 217 ppi) colour display with integrated lens

• Enhanced HTML browser delivers high performance with desktop-style depiction

• Enterprise-grade Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g)

• Built-in GPS with support for location based applications and services including geotagging; comes with BlackBerry Maps preinstalled

• 1 GB on-board storage memory, as well as an externally accessible microSD/SDHC memory card slot for additional storage

• A removable/rechargeable 1500 mAhr battery

• DataViz Documents To Go preinstalled, enabling customers to edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on the smartphone

• 2 megapixel camera with digital zoom, built-in flash and video recording

• Advanced media player for viewing pictures, listening to music and watching videos

• Support for High Speed USB 2.0 enables quick file transfers between a PC and the smartphone

• BlackBerry Desktop Manager software, which includes Roxio Media Manager for BlackBerry, a media manager application that allows users to easily manage media files on their computer and transfer them to the smartphone; the BlackBerry Bold also comes with the new BlackBerry Media Sync application for customers that want a simple way to sync their iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone

• Support for downloading music directly from Rogers MusicStore

• The Rogers Do More portal enabling access to a variety of mobile applications for business and personal use

• Instant messaging with BlackBerry Messenger, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger

• Support for the Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones application, which enables fast, streamlined and optimized mobile access to the popular Facebook social utility

• Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, enhanced noise cancellation to offset background noise, a low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals

• BlackBerry Internet Service support that allows access to up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts

• BlackBerry Enterprise Server support for enterprise deployments with advanced security and IT controls