The end of August will spell the beginning of the ‘Crackberry’ epidemic in China as the first set of phones are to be released for the first time. 8700g Handsets will be making their debut with approximately 5,000 orders for these phones are already queued.

This is a great move by RIM who has been trying to get their foot in the door for quite some time now.

They will be directly competing with China’s own inhouse telecom company, China United Telecommunications Corp, which introduced their own “RedBerry” push email service last year.

The 8700g is said to retail for approximately CDN$700 (US$661).