RIM Intros the First Flip Blackberry

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

On Wednesday RIM unveiled the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone. Yes, it’s the first BlackBerry to come in a flip version. Some love this type of form factor (though not me!), and as such the new phone gives RIM another weapon in its arsenal.

Quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE), the new phone weighs in at 3.6 ounces and measures 3.9″ x 1.9″ x 0.7″. It sports a 65,536-color 128×160 pixel external display and a 65,536-color 240 x 320 internal LCD, along with a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

Naturally it includes the prerequisite media player features just about everyone wants nowadays, and as a Pearl it has a trackball navigator and SureType (bleh) keyboard.

Not many surprises, as Pearl-ish as it is it keeps in line feature-wise with the Pearl 8120. And, as expected, the Pearl Flip 8220 will be exclusive to T-Mobile. It will launch in the vague “this fall” timeframe. Pricing details are similarly vague (”later”).

Flip-style phones are popular, but flip-style smartphones — not so much. So, the question remains: will users flip over this new Blackberry?

Check out RIM’s full press release here.