RIM have officially announced BlackBerry Curve 8520, the handset formerly known as the BlackBerry Gemini. Set to land on both T-Mobile USA and Vodafone UK next month, the Curve 8520 is the company’s latest non-3G smartphone, complete with a full hardware QWERTY keyboard and a optical trackpad for navigation.

For those who might not be fully aware of the specs of the new handset, we should mention a 2.64-inch display (320 x 240 pixel resolution, support for 65k colors), a 2.0-megapixel photo snapper with video recording capabilities, 256MB of Flash Memory, Bluetooth v2.0 + EDR and A2DP, 802.11b/g, trackpad, Media Keys and support for quad-band: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz GSM/GPRS and quad-band: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz EDGE networks. The handset comes with an 1150 mAHr battery that delivers 4.5 hours of talk time or 17 days of standby time.

While many may scoff at the absence of high-speed cellular connectivity, the success of other 2.5G BlackBerry handsets such as the Curve 8900 shows there’s still a demand for straightforward, solid messaging-centric smartphones. One great thing that the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 reportedly brings forth is Mac OS X compatibility right out of the box, which means that Mac users will have a reason to rejoice, especially since a Mac version of BlackBerry Desktop Manager has already been announced to arrive in September.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is expected to be available free in the UK, assuming you sign a new contract priced at £25 ($41) per month or more with Vodafone UK.  Meanwhile pre-pay customers will be able to buy the handset for around £150 ($247).  No word on US pricing or availability as yet.

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