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BlackBerry Pearl 9100 revealed, has lost its gemstone but not its luster
The BlackBerry Pearl 8100 was, and still is, a lovely little phone, QWERTYfied, pocketable, and rocking that little milky trackball that gave it its name. There's finally a true successor coming down the pipeline (the flippy 8230 not really counting) though it ditches the iconic pearl for a now-standard (and hopefully more reliable) touchpad. There's a similarly swoopy SureType keyboard and the overall dimensions look very much the same, meaning this should fill the tiny BlackBerry void once again -- whenever it ships. Update: But of course the original 8100 also had SureType, not QWERTY. [Thanks, Alex T]
BlackBerry 8130 makes its way to Telus
It seems only fitting that RIM would launch its BlackBerry Pearl 2 in the motherland, doesn't it? Available immediately, the 8130 is on sale with the carrier for a penny under $200 CAD on a three-year contract, $400 on a two-year, and $450 on a one-year, and a whopping $500 without a contract. Just in case the features slipped your mind, we'll run 'em past you again: EV-DO radio, 2 megapixel camera with video recording, Bluetooth with A2DP, media player, and expandable memory via microSD. If anyone up there has a pocketbook brave enough to bear such pricing, sound off in comments and let us know what you think of the latest 'Berry. [Thanks, Don C.]
Hands-on with Sprint's BlackBerry Pearl 8130
Happy day, we bumped into Sprint's BlackBerry Pearl 8130 this aft at CTIA and not surprisingly it's a lot like the other Pearl we all know and love, but in a richer, smoother CDMA flavor. We dig it -- as we do all of RIM's creations -- in a business handset kind of way, and thought that some pics would make somebody happy before they head on down to pick one up -- once they hit retail in November, that is. Follow the link to see the pics.%Gallery-9017%
Sprint set to serve up BlackBerry Pearl 2 around Thanksgiving?
Boy Genius has heard that the much anticipated -- and terribly named -- BlackBerry Pearl 2 may well be dressed out in shops sometime around or during Thanksgiving weekend. Word also has that GPS is a go, but as we mentioned, WiFi is not, yet again proving the old adage that 'you can't have it all' -- though somehow, the TyTN 2 has it all. Of course, we'll be following this one closely so be sure to pop in when you have a spare moment -- or while you're stuffing face with turkey on said weekend -- for updates.[Thanks, Greg]
BlackBerry Pearl 2 in the wild
If you're trying to figure out what's different here from the original... well, first of all, you're probably not a Pearl owner, and second, most of the fun stuff is under the hood. Pinstack has scored a plethora of high quality shots detailing the GSM / WiFi variant of the Pearl 2, OS 4.3 and all. As we'd heard before, the presence of WiFi excludes the presence of GPS here and it'll be up to carriers to decide which model to carry -- an especially tough decision considering that there's no 3G radio. Most of the Pearl 2's rumored improvements are in full display in this gallery, too: the 3.5mm headphone jack, external microSD slot, moderately improved keypad, and a fresh coat of paint. Hit the Pinstack link for the remainder of the visual stimulation.
RIM's new Pearls and Curves: WiFi or GPS, not both
It seems RIM's going full force with the "you can't have your cake and eat it too" rule with its new batch of devices, even though we're pretty sure we could have our cake and eat it too -- if only RIM would let us. If a slide deck over on Pinstack turns out to be legit, the next-gen Pearl and the 8300 Curve's slightly newer cousins will be available in carriers' choices of WiFi or GPS variants, but for whatever reason, never both. We're guessing RIM has some fancy explanation about battery drain or engineering issues, but whatever -- we can think of plenty of devices that do both with aplomb, so we're not too happy about the whole mess. As the Curves go, the 8310 will do GPS while the 8320 will pack the 802.11b/g action, but the devices' internals are otherwise unchanged from the original. The Pearl 2 meanwhile has a more expansive list of updates from its predecessor, stepping up to a 2 megapixel camera, an honest-to-goodness 3.5mm headphone jack, and "new firm keypad technology" (yay!) among other things. In the Pearl's case, network determines the add-on feature: GSM gets WiFI (probably to make up for the agony of EDGE) while CDMA gets GPS. Look for all of these to hit well before the year's out.
Specs, details on RIM's Pearl 2 "Komet"
We don't have a picture in our hot little hands just yet, but sure enough, it looks like RIM's SureType torchbearer is getting a little (or maybe not so little) facelift in the coming months. Codnamed "Komet," the Pearl's successor allegedly gets hooked up with a whopping 3.2 megapixel camera sporting a landscape viewfinder, WiFi, an external microSD slot, and support for Windows Media. Oh, and you need some sort of listening apparatus for that Windows Media, right? Try your pick of A2DP support and a 3.5mm jack (hallelujah!). No word on when or where the Komet sees its debut, but we'll bide our time with the Curve in the meanwhile, thankyouverymuch. Click through for the full spec sheet!
