BlackBerry continues the good fight against Apple’s iPhone and numerous other Windows Mobile handsets by making available their latest release, the 3G BlackBerry Tour from RIM. This model will arrive on Verizon wireless Communications stores come this July 12th, where it is going for a $199.99 price point after a $70 mail-in rebate as well as a new 2-year contract. At that price which is similar to the new iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre, it would be interesting to see this tussle work itself out when consumers vote with their wallets. Will the BlackBerry Tour be able to hold its ground or even win some more market share for RIM? We’ll just have to wait and see, but head on right after the jump to know more about the BlackBerry Tour before you make a purchase decision.

The BlackBerry Tour further expands the current BlackBerry family that already comprises of the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Curve 8330 (available in either silver or pink), BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 and BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphones in the Verizon Wireless portfolio. What makes the Tour special? Well, this is a 3G world phone after all, which offers the privilege of customers making phone calls in 220 countries alongside the ability to access e-mail and Internet in any of the 175 countries where Verizon Wireless provides data roaming services. Other features that normal phone users have come to take for granted are also included in the BlackBerry Tour, and these include RIM’s popular push-based mobile solution for e-mail, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and social networking, a 3.2-megapixel camera with geo-tagging and video recording, audio and video playback for portable entertainment, integrated GPS navigation capability, full HTML Web browsing and support for Verizon Wireless’ Mobile Broadband Connect tethering service.

Of course, what’s a BlackBerry if you don’t have a reasonable data plan to back it up? Email and Web for BlackBerry plans start from $29.99 upwards whenever you add on to any Nationwide voice plan. You interested?

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