It’s been a while since we’ve seen the mysterious BlackBerry 8980 code-named Atlas, which looks like little more than a Bold 9700 with a Curve-style keyboard, but it recently passed through the FCC rigamarole. Technically, the first test results for the 8980 went through in early September, but just yesterday the user manual and external device photos were made available. If that weren’t indicative enough of a release, this picture and a few others surfaced recently showing the device live with China Mobile branding, much like the model we had seen in late August.

It’s entirely likely that this is another China-only device, and much like the 8910, only runs on EDGE networks. It should have Wi-Fi. though, along with the usual Bold fixings like GPS, HVGA display, 3.2 megapixel camera, and 256 MB of RAM, but none of that is quite confirmed yet. I would hope that it is at least upgradeable to OS 6, since it’s looking like it will launch with 5.

It’s been taking a long time for this device to launch; we’ve seen hints of it for over a year now, but I can only imagine the hoops RIM has to jump through to keep the government and carriers happy there. RIM has a pretty classy-looking flagship store over there, which should at least keep Chinese consumers enthusiastic about BlackBerry smartphones.