BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Available from T-Mobile

At the stroke of midnight, the new BlackBerry Pearl 8220 flip phone became available, as was announced in a joint press release by BlackBerry manufacturer RIM and T-Mobile. Just hours later the first BlackBerry flip phone appeared on T-Mobile's web site.



This marks the first new BlackBerry smartphone in what promises to be a very busy holiday season. We still expect to see release of the Storm and the U.S. release of the flagship Bold this year, not to mention that the Curve 8900 has been announced by T-Mobile Germany with other carriers sure to follow suit.

The Pearl 8220 is more than a clam shell variation on the familiar Pearl theme. Sure, it incorporates the improvements that we saw with the 8120 over the original 8100, most notably a 2.0 megapixel camera and Wi-Fi. The 8220 also features video recording which requires the use of a microSD card. It comes with a 256MB card but because it has BlackBerry Operating System 4.6 it will support up to a 16GB card. The video experience can be enhanced by turning the 2.4-inch diagonal measure, 320 x 240 pixel screen horizontally to view in widescreen mode.

This is a great music phone which supports A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) for Bluetooth stereo and the phone comes complete with a wireless stereo headset. Media management is easy using BlackBerry Media Net which allows for synchronizing iTunes with the phone or by using Roxio Media Manager which is included as part of the BlackBerry Desktop Manager desktop synchronization program.

DataViz's Documents to Go program is installed on the Pearl 8220 which provides the added capability of editing Word and PowerPoint documents. Excel spreadsheets can also be edited by downloading a free upgrade from DataViz for BlackBerry users.

The new BlackBerry Pearl 8220 is currently available only in black but T-Mobile's web site indicates that it will soon be offered in red as well.

Check out our smartphone reviews for information about BlackBerries and other contenders, or keep on reading these blog posts:

BlackBerry Bold Release Delayed by AT&T

BlackBerry Storm Official Release

Video Calls on Your Cell Phone Aren't Far Away Unfortunately

BlackBerry Storm on Verizon Wireless

BlackBerry Pearl 8220 from T-Mobile