Research In Motion (RIM) is prepping the BlackBerry 9630, also known as the BlackBerry Tour, for release across multiple carriers in July.

While Apple gets most of the media attention with their iPhone updates, BlackBerry is still a strong contender in the smartphone market, and especially with business users.  And, yes, we here at StarterTech are prejudice as two of us carry BlackBerrys as we refuse to work with AT&T because of a long history of problems with them.

The BlackBerry Tour will be the successor to the Blackberry 8830, the last “world phone” the company released which will work pretty much anywhere in the world.  For those of you who have not travelled to other regions of the world, the United States went with a different cellular system than the majority of the world, so your mobile phone makes a nice paper weight while you are out of the country.  With the BlackBerry world phones you are able to use multiple cellular bandwidths to keep yourself connected as you travel throughout the various regions of the planet.

So what can you expect from this new model?

• 3.2 MP camera with flash, variable zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording(i)
• Full HTML web browser, including support for streaming audio and video (RTSP)
• Advanced media player for videos, pictures and music, a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and support for the Bluetooth(R) Stereo Audio Profile (A2DP/AVCRP)
• 256MB Flash memory
• Expandable memory via hot swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot, supporting cards of up to 16 GB today and expected to support next generation 32GB cards when available
• Built-in GPS with support for geotagging, BlackBerry(R) Maps and other location based applications and services
• BlackBerry(R) Media Sync allows customers to quickly and easily synch music from iTunes(R) and Windows Media Player with the smartphone(ii)
• Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, enhanced background noise cancellation, a low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals
• Preloaded DataViz(R) Documents to Go(R), allowing users to edit Microsoft(R) Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
• Easy mobile access to Facebook(R), MySpace and Flickr(R), as well as popular instant messaging services including BlackBerry(R) Messenger, Yahoo!(R) IM, AIM(R), Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger(TM)
• Support for BlackBerry App World(TM), featuring a broad and growing catalog of third-party mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones. Categories include travel, productivity, entertainment, games, social networking & sharing, news & weather, and more
• BlackBerry(R) Internet Service allows access to up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts
• BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server provides advanced security and IT administration features within IBM(R) Lotus(R) Domino(R), Microsoft(R) Exchange and Novell(R) GroupWise(R) environments
• Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery for 5 hours of talk time and 14 days of standby time

The only thing really missing from this unit is Wi-Fi, but from what we understand, there is a conflict between the wireless standard and one of the bands for the cell portion of the phone.  Reportedly this conflict will be eliminated in future editions, but that is currently unconfirmed.

Also unconfirmed are the release dates.  Rumor is that Verizon will get it on July 12th, and Sprint will see it on July 20th (how kind of them since that is my birthday!).  While neither of the dates have been confirmed officially yet, the pricing is known to be $199.99 with a two-year contract for either carrier.  I personally can’t wait to get my hands on this phone.