Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/07/blackberry_8100_pearl/
Pearl of the BlackBerry ocean?
8100 candybar to rival Samsung's new offering
Posted in Phones, 7th September 2006 14:12 GMT
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Here we are, spouting off about Samsung [1] having a potential BlackBerry killer in the SGH-i600 and all along RIM has a smartphone in the works. Who'd have thought it?
The BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is a candybar that measures 107 x 50 x 14mm (HxWxD)and weighs a mere 89g. The 240 x 260 screen dimensions aren't given, but it looks to be a tad over two inches on the diagonal.
This BlackBerry doesn't have a thumbwheel, instead it uses a trackball navigation device from which the 8100 gets its Pearl name. The QWERTY keypad uses RIM's SureType technology. It's a Quad-band GSM/GPRS phone with EDGE. The Pearl also has 64MB flash memory and a MicroSD slot, a first on a BlackBerry device.
Other features include Bluetooth 2.0 and a 1.3 megapixel camera - again a first for a BlackBerry - with flash and 5x digital zoom. The Pearl has a media player and supports MP3 and ACC music files as well as MPEG4 and H.263 movie formats. Americans get BlackBerry maps, but we Europeans miss out.
RIM has set up a dedicated website for the BlackBerry Pearl [2], which is available in the US from 12 September, and in Europe from October.
O2 will be the first network to offer the 8100 in the UK. ®