Optus and Research In Motion (RIM) this week unveiled the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone in Australia, the first BlackBerry phone to come in the popular clamshell form factor.
Packed with a wide range of features, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone provides users with all the powerful communications and multimedia features of a BlackBerry smartphone in a fun and familiar design.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is being showcased at the Flip for It (www.flipforit.com.au) website where customers can learn more about the styling, features and wide range of mobile lifestyle and business applications available for this smartphone. Individuals in Australia who register on the website before 30 November 2008 can win a trip to New York for them and a friend to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone packs an impressive range of features into its compact design, including phone, email, messaging, organiser, browser and multimedia applications. Its impressive multimedia features include a 2 megapixel camera with flash, zoom and video recording to capture memories whilst on the move. It also supports thousands of third-party mobile lifestyle and business applications.
For an excellent on-the-go browsing experience, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone’s enhanced HTML browser displays web pages beautifully in either Column View or Page View and different emulation settings allow users to choose between desktop-style HTML content and the mobile version of web pages. With its built-in Wi-Fi, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip also lets users access enterprise wireless networks and Wi-Fi hotspots.
Phone features
The GPRS and EDGE-enabled BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone is a top of the line mobile phone delivering exceptional voice quality with many premium phone features, including Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialling (VAD), support for mp3 ring tones, smart dialling, conference calling, speed dialling, 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.
Messaging
Featuring a large QWERTY-based SureType keyboard that makes typing messages and dialling numbers fast and easy, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip, like all BlackBerry smartphones, provides integrated access to the industry leading 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 is supported on BlackBerry Internet Service, BlackBerry Unite!, BlackBerry Professional Software and BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which provides tight integration with corporate email systems and the security and IT policy controls that enterprise customers require to confidently allow smartphones in their organisation.
Multimedia
With an advanced media player for displaying pictures, listening to music and watching videos, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip is the perfect on-the-go entertainment center. Videos play smoothly on the large internal display, playlists can be managed directly on the handset and there’s an equaliser with 11 preset filters – including Lounge, Jazz and Hip Hop – for customising audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers. 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 conveniently accessible microSD/SDHC memory card slot that supports up to 16GB for plenty of storage. High Speed USB 2.0 support allows files to be quickly transferred between a desktop computer and the smartphone and the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software includes Roxio Media Manager for BlackBerry to help users easily manage their music and video files. Roxio Photosuite 9 LE is also included for creating photo albums and editing pictures on a computer.
Accessories
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip comes with a variety of accessories including a stereo headset, travel charger and USB cable. Additional accessories for BlackBerry smartphones, including holsters and totes, charging pods, premium earphones, Bluetooth headsets and the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway.
Price and availability
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone will be available exclusively to Optus customers from the end of October 2008 and can be purchased for $0 upfront on the business or consumer BlackBerry $79 Cap plan (minimum total cost for the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 over 24 months is $1,896).
Source: Research in Motion
