Toronto, Aug 19 (IANS) Canadian telecom giant Research in Motion (RIM), which skipped its own backyard earlier this month to unveil its much-hyped BlackBerry Bold in Austria, Russia and Turkey, will reportedly launch the wonder smartphone here this week.The Canadian launch of the BlackBerry Bold comes within weeks after Apple’s iPhone3G made waves here.

The cable network and media giant Rogers will support the Blackberry Bold system across Canada.

The company has neither commented on this week’s launch, nor given any pricing details.

Though the new smartphone is being touted as RIM’s reply to the iPhone, experts say it still remains a device for business users and professionals.

However, a plethora of new features on it will certainly endear it young students and teens.

RIM has not made any announcement yet, but the market buzz is that the Waterloo-based company will unveil its real rival to the iPhone only later this year.

Like the iPhone3G, the Bold version of BlackBerry too operates on the much faster 3G network.

It has a half-VGA LCD display with 480×320 resolution, a powerful 624 MHz processor and 1 GB internal storage memory. With a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and digital zoom, the new device also boasts an advanced media player that displays pictures and slideshows quickly, plays movies smoothly in full screen mode and manages an entire music collection.

Its audio can be played over the handset’s dual speakers in rich, stereo sound, and when using headphones or external speakers, the media player gives the user an equalizer with 11 preset filters - like Lounge, Jazz and Hip Hop - that boost or soften audio ranges.