Boy Genius Report posted a great overview of the upcoming Blackberry 9700. This device will come to Rogers and AT&T in October or November so if you can wait, definitely do so. This model gets rid of the failure-prone trackball and replaces it with a touchpad. It’s smaller, lighter and thinner and will be the next “it” device from RIM. Expect the existing Bold device to be lowered in price, and this device to fill it’s pricing void.

Sure, Roger’s has two Canadian “exclusives”, the iPhone and the Blackberry Bold. But recent changes to their pricing and upgrade policies have me rethinking them as the choice for my current smartphone. Not only did they increase prices on all new blackberrys (by as much as $50) but today they increased the time for upgrades from 12 months to 24 months. This is on top of thier new increased fees for cable, internet and wireless service.

Rogers is taking EVERY step possible to squeeze as much revenue as possible from their existing user base. At least we have some choice in the matter. Bell isn’t standing by and has aggressively been promoting both cable and internet service to my building. GlobalLive is holding onto a large chunk of spectrum and itching to get into the wireless service in Canada. We have long memories and won’t forget this cash squeeze from Rogers – we may not leave right away, but when the time comes, we will leave and never look back.