The Canadian telecommunication and mobile device company, Research In Motion (RIM), released the original BlackBerry Pearl on September 12, 2006. This line of BlackBerry phones can be divided into three categories i.e. the Pearl 8100 series, the Pearl 8200 series and the Pearl 3G series.
The first series of BlackBerry Pearl consist of the 8100, the 8110, the 8120, and the 8130 series. The design factor of this series is a bar design. All of these phones feature a trackball interface and 2 megapixels camera except for the 8100 with 1.3 megapixels camera. They also feature speakerphone, Bluetooth, microSDHC and media player. The BlackBerry 8120 is the first Pearl that supports Wi-Fi capability. The 8130 model includes an EVDO high speed CDMA data capability.
The BlackBerry Pearl 8200 series also known as the Pearl Flip series consist of the 8220 series and the 8230 series. This Smartphone has the stylish clamshell design with the internal display of 240 x 320 pixels (QVGA) and 65K colors and external Display of 128 x 160 pixels and 65K colors. The 8220 is compatible with the GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), while the 8230 runs on CDMA2000 1xRTT/EVDO networks (800/1900 MHz).
Other features of this series are the trackball interface, 2 megapixels camera, speakerphone, Bluetooth, external microSDHC (up to 16 GB), polyphonic ringtones, media player, 128 MB flash memory. The 8220 model already supports for the Wi-Fi connection and BlackBerry Maps. For business activity, it has the capability to open and edit office files such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and also PDF files.
The BlackBerry Pearl 3G series consist of the 9100 series and the 9105 series. Both models support for the high speed 3G network of HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps and HSUPA. These phones are equipped with the 3.15 megapixels camera with autofocus and LED flash and can capture image with the maximum resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. The 3G series feature the touch-sensitive optical track pad and for the 9105 series features the half QWERTY keyboard. They also feature Wi-Fi, GPS and media player.
If compared with other BlackBerry models, the BlackBerry Pearl models do not feature a full QWERTY keyboard, but they feature a modified QWERTY keypad design. They also have new features like camera, music player and Wi-Fi capability (not available in the previous BlackBerry models). Other notable feature of this series is the track ball interface that became the typical feature of the Pearl phones. [IS]
