Blackberry announced the Blackberry Curve 9360 yesterday alongside two other smartphones running on Blackberry OS 7.

The new smartphones aim to be a more affordable alternative to the Bold 9900 and the unreleased Torch smartphones. However, that doesn't stop it having a decent specification and excellent features.

Only hours after the mobile was announced both Three and O2 have confirmed they will be stocking the smartphone when it launches later this year. It's expected to begin rolling out across Europe in September.

The Curve 9360 has the classic Blackberry QWERTY keyboard and a 2.44 inch screen. The Blackberry Curve 9360 is powered by an 800 Mhz processor, has 512MB of RAM, 512MB of on-board memory and a 5 mega-pixel camera. It also supports both 3G and WiFi , microSD cards and NFC.

Blackberry OS 7 brings a new faster browser with more support for HTML5, premium version of Documents To Go, Blackberry Messenger and Social network feeds.

We're not sure what price-point the smartphone will launch at but we'd guess on Three it'll be a maximum of £30 a month on the One Plan. We'll have to wait and see but it's definitely a good alternative for Blackberry fans.