If you are one of those people who love your Blackberry, but still long for that mobile flip phone that you once carried, then you are in for a treat.
Research In Motion (RIM) diversified its Blackberry line by introducing a flip or clamshell model, a popular form for mobile phones.
The Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220 will be available later this year through operator T-Mobile, although RIM didn’t say at what price.
The quad-band EDGE based BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone presents a sleek design and a chrome-finished frame surrounding its smooth, luminescent face. Packed with some powerful features, it weighs only 3.6 ounces and measures approximately 3.9” x 1.9” x 0.7”.
Featuring two high-resolution, light-sensing color displays, the external LCD makes it easy to preview incoming emails, text messages and phone calls without opening the handset, while the internal LCD (240×320 pixels) displays messages, videos and web pages.
“The popularity of BlackBerry smartphones has grown tremendously around the world and the introduction of this exciting new flip phone will help extend the reach of the BlackBerry platform even further,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is a full-featured smartphone with a unique and friendly design and it is a natural choice for flip phone users who want to start doing more with their phone than just talk.”
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone is a top of the line mobile phone, delivering high voice quality and includes many premium phone features according to the company.
Features include Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), support for mp3 ring tones, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dialing, call forwarding, voicemail attachment playback and enhanced background noise cancellation.
It also features a speakerphone and Bluetooth 2.0 for use with hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits and other Bluetooth peripherals such as a GPS receiver.
The removable/rechargeable 900 mAhr battery provides four hours of talk time and over 14 days of standby time.
Featuring a large SureType QWERTY keyboard, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip, like all BlackBerry smartphones, provides integrated access to the BlackBerry wireless services.
Users are able to easily access up to 10 supported personal and work email accounts, send and receive text and instant messages, and connect on popular social networking sites with friends, family and co-workers.
The DataViz Documents to Go software suite is also preloaded, allowing users to edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip works with the new BlackBerry Media Sync application that makes it easy to sync iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone and it also features a microSD/SDHC memory card slot that supports up to 16GB for additional storage.
It features a 2 megapixel camera with flash, zoom and video recording, and includes BlackBerry Maps to deliver maps and step-by-step driving directions.
The browser also supports RTSP for watching online streaming video from sites like m.youtube.com. In addition, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone features built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) with support for UMA (unlicensed mobile access), extending wireless email and data coverage and supporting carrier enabled voice calls over home Wi-Fi networks, enterprise wireless deployments and Wi-Fi hotspots.
