Today Research In Motion announced its next-generation smartphone, the 9000 Bold. The Bold is the first 100% new smartphone from RIM in over a year. It has brand new hardware, but keeps the bar-style form factor, QWERTY keyboard layout and the trackball for navigation. It features tri-band HSDPA 3G radios for international 3G roaming, along with 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi and built in GPS. Global roaming includes Japan and South Korea, a first for a BlackBerry sold in the U.S. A 624MHz processor powers the device, and it has 1GB of on-board memory, plus a microSD slot for expanded storage.

It has a half-VGA display that RIM says is “fused” to a lens, making images and graphics appear richer. It comes with a 2 megapixel camera with flash and a reworked media player. The media player can run slide shows, as well as play movies. The music player has been enhanced with an equalizer, and it has stereo speakers, as well as supports stereo Bluetooth. Lastly, the Bold comes with RIM’s latest operating system, which has a reworked menu structure and different look and feel compared to current BlackBerries. Pricing information was not announced, but the Bold will be available through AT&T later this summer.