Tata Teleservcies (TTSL) and Research in Motion (RIM) announced the launch of 3G ready BlackBerry Tour smartphone in the Indian market for a price of Rs 27,990.

The phone operates in the CDMA band in India and UMTS/HSPA (2100Mhz) and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks abroad while on international roaming.

Lookwise, it sports a black finish with chrome highlights and a sleek design. It has a 3.2 mega pixel camera. Features from BlackBerry App World such as free mobile applications designed for business, productivity, games, news and lifestyle needs are also incorporated into the phone.

Announcing the launch of the BlackBerry Tour smartphone, Pradeep Dwivedi, Senior Vice President- Marketing, Tata Teleservices Limited, said, “Tata Teleservices recognizes that for many people, smartphones have become a lifeline for their business and personal relationships. With life becoming ‘on-the-go’ the BlackBerry Tour, together with our innovative offerings, will appeal to both retail and business customers who want industry-leading email, messaging, social networking, mobile Internet, camera, music and entertainment features while being able to stay seamlessly connected in India as well as internationally. This is a true 3G era phone that offers an exceptional mobile experience to discerning customers.”

“The BlackBerry Tour smartphone offers outstanding mobile performance, state-of-the-art communications, rich multimedia capabilities and consummate styling,” said Frenny Bawa, Vice President, India, Research In Motion. “RIM and Tata have established a strong relationship and we look forward to working together to offer this impressive smartphone to Tata''s customers in India.

Other features include voice activated dialing, enhanced background noise cancellation, a low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth® support for hands-free headsets, stereo headsets and car kits. The phone offers instant messaging and applications of popular services such as Facebook®, MySpace, Yahoo!® Messenger, AIM®, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger™ and BlackBerry® Messenger.