Unlike its decidedly corporate brethren, the Blackberry Pearl was the kind of phone you would see everyone using, from teenagers on the bus to seniors at the mall. The little candybar smartphone that could was RIM’s first real foray into the consumer market.
So while the announcement of a new Pearl 3G seems a bit unexciting, it’s likely that soon, millions of people around the world will be carrying one of these new Pearls with them.
Perhaps the most surprising change here is the availability of a Pearl with a standard T9 keypad, in additional to the Pearl’s traditional 20-key ‘it’s kinda’ like QWERTY but not really’ SureType pad – though the T9 pad is only going to be available for Europe and Africa.
In addition to the obviously faster speeds of 3G, the phone also sports the new Blackberry trackpad in place of the previous ‘pearl’ trackball – making us wonder why it’s still called a Pearl at all (maybe they should have gone with ‘Swipe’?) Also on the model is the unusual feature Wireless-N in addition to a 3.2MP camera, Bluetooth and video recording.
It was also leaked/announced today that Blackberry Bold 9650 is on its way, which is just a CDMA version of the Bold 9700 for Sprint customers in the US.
[Sources: The Street & Pocket-Lint]
