AT&T, BlackBerry Get Bold on Election Day

On a day when most people will be focused on politics, not gadgetry, AT&T followed through with their promise, and Tuesday launched the BlackBerry Bold, which had seemed to take an interminable time to reach this point.

Price: a "mere" $300, after a $100 mail-in rebate and the typical two-year service agreement.

An AT&T voice plan starts at $39.99 per month; a BlackBerry unlimited data plan starts at $30 per month, with an additional $45 for BlackBerry Professional Software or Enterprise Server with the ability to access corporate email.

With a BlackBerry data plan you also, just as iPhone users do, get free wi-fi at over 17,000 AT&T hotspots.

I detailed the Bold earlier, so just the highlights: VGA display with a full QWERTY keyboard, a 624-MHz CPU, 1GB of internal storage and a 16GB expansion slot, and a 2-megapixel camera.

It supports 3G on AT&T's HSDPA network.

And, based on the attention paid to the other Nov. 4th event of note, you probably won't find long lines (and let's face it; it's not cultishly sought after like the iPhone 3G).