BlackBerry Bold Touch set to ship with NFC technology

RIM is to add touch-screen capabilities to its BlackBerry Bold smartphone, and release a premium keyboard-less handset, as the firm aims to prevent business users jumping ship to Apple and Android devices.

BlackBerry devices codenamed Monaco and Montana (Bold Touch) are expected to be launched in the third quarter of 2011, and videos showing the handsets have already surfaced on YouTube.

A roadmap showing the specifications of the Monaco and Montana were first posted by CrackBerry in January.

The Bold Touch has been touted as the "thinnest BlackBerry ever", and RIM is expected to ship the candy-bar device with an all-new stainless steel frame.

Key upgrades are to be made to the 2.8in screen, which will support capacitive touch and feature an improved resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. RIM will also up the internal storage to 8GB and build in Near-Field Communications (NFC) technology.

RIM's trademark physical Qwerty keyboard and optical trackpad will remain, as these features are still popular with business users.

The Monaco, meanwhile, is described by RIM as "a premium handheld device in a sleek and modern design".

The handset comes with an 800 x 480 3.7in screen, 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor, 4GB of internal storage, micro-SD card support and NFC.

The Monaco is expected to be brought to market in July, with the Bold Touch set to follow in August. Both are due to come with BlackBerry 6 OS.

V3.co.uk contacted RIM to confirm details regarding the devices and launch date, but the firm had yet to respond at the time of writing.

Video snippets of the Bold Touch and Monaco are below: