Pearl of the BlackBerry ocean?

Here we are, spouting off about Samsung 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, 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. ®