On the same day America picks a new President, it'll have another important decision to make: Whether to upgrade to Research In Motion's (RIM) latest BlackBerry model with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard, the BlackBerry Bold.

Today, RIM and AT&T announced today that the highly-anticipated smartphone will ship on November 4th. It'll go for as low as $299.99 with a two-year contract and qualified voice and data plans.

The Bold will be available in AT&T retail stores nationwide, through www.att.com and select national retailers, as well as through AT&T's business-to-business sales teams. The AT&T exclusive can be used in the most countries abroad, including more than 60 with 3G networks.

Well over a month ago, RIM started rolling out the Bold in some international markets. Then, about a week later, Rogers in Canada (see our review) became the first North American carrier to pick it up—the first BlackBerry with GSM-friendly 3G technology for e-mail, Web and data access.

The Bold was supposed to ship in the U.S. this summer and then September, but was a no show. AT&T, after the problems it experienced with the iPhone 3G, wanted to make sure the new smartphone played nice with its 3G network.

According to reports, the Bold's 480 x 320-pixel (half-VGA) resolution) is the best-looking display every to appear on a smartphone. It is supposed to be so good, participants in research groups testing the new BlackBerry kept calling the screen "bold" and "brilliant," hence the name.

More on the BlackBerry Bold
The Bold is composed of a black exterior with a satin chrome finished frame and leather-like backplate. It measures 4.5 x 2.6 x 0.55 inches and weighs 4.7 ounces.

RIM's redesigned to the Bold's full-size QWERTY thumb-keyboard to make it easier to use as well.

AT&T’s 3G network, which the Bold is the first BlackBerry to support, is now available in more than 350 U.S. markets with average uplink speeds between 500 and 800 kilobits per second (Kbps) and typical downlink speeds of 600 to 1,400 Kbps. The carrier expects to grow the number of supported markets to 350 by the end of the year.

By offering the Bold, AT&T will become the only U.S. carrier to sell a BlackBerry that has international 3G capabilities. While CDMA operators like Sprint and Verizon already offer 3G-capable RIM smartphones, theirs use EV-DO technology, which isn't supported by most carriers around the world.

The Bold integrates GPS and Wi-Fi, in addition to multimedia capabilities.

Inside, Bold sports the most powerful processor, 624MHz, ever found in a BlackBerry. It includes 128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory, as well as a microSDHC memory card slot that is conveniently accessible from a side door.

Of course, Bold comes with the RIM's BlackBerry productivity applications, including phone, push e-mail, messaging, organizer and a re-designed browser.

The trackball - first scene as the Pearl in the BlackBerry Pearl - mimics a mouse to make it easier to navigate sites in "Page View" or "Column View" or to zoom in on specific parts of a web page, while various emulation settings allow users to choose between the full desktop-style HTML content and layout or the mobile version.

Attachments can also now be downloaded from within the browser and there is support for watching streaming videos (RTSP – real-time streaming protocol). You can read and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files using the preloaded DataViz Documents to Go mobile office suite.

It features a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom.

The media player can display pictures and slideshows, play movies in full screen mode, and manage music files. Audio can be played over the handset’s dual speakers and when using wired 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 to create the perfect ambiance.

For managing music and video, the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software includes Roxio Media Manager for BlackBerry as well as Roxio Photosuite 9 LE. For those that manage their collection with iTunes, the new BlackBerry Media Sync application provides a way to sync iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone.

Phone features include Speaker Independent Voice Recognition for Voice Activated Dialing, Bluetooth 2.0 with support for hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, and car kits. It also hsa dedicated 'send', 'end', and 'mute' keys, smart dialing, speed dialing, conference calling and call forwarding.

Noise cancellation technology is supposed to offset background noise

Its removable 1500 mAhr battery should provide approximately 5 hours talk and 13 days standby time.

Like all BlackBerry smartphones, the Bold gives works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which enables advanced security and IT administration within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise environments, as well as BlackBerry Professional Software for small businesses.

It also works with BlackBerry Internet Service, which gives users access to up to 10 work or personal e-mail accounts and the BlackBerry Unite! software for SOHO and home users.

The Bold will come with a stereo headset, travel charger, carrying case or sleeve and USB cable. Users will also be able to personalize their BlackBerry Bold smartphone by purchasing replaceable leather-like backplates that come in a range of colors.