Last week, Research In Motion (RIM) unveiled three new BlackBerry smartphones at its ninth annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) in Orlando: The BlackBerry Bold 9650; the 3G Pearl 9100; and the Pearl 9105, with a “new” T9-style keyboard.
(Read, “BlackBerry Bold 9650, Pearl 9100 Finally Get Official at WES 2010” and “BlackBerry Pearl 9100: Details, Images and Accessories” for more on both devices.)
The new Bold is basically a beefed-up BlackBerry Tour 9630 with a trackpad and Wi-Fi. And the Pearl 9100 is an upgraded Pearl 8100, also with a trackpad and Wi-Fi. But the Pearl 9105 has two features that’ve never before made it to a BlackBerry smartphone: 1) 802.11n Wi-Fi, for faster connectivity and increased reliability; and 2) a “T9” or “text on nine,” traditional cell-phone keypad.
The Pearl 9105 got a lot of attention at WES 2010, largely because of that new keyboard. However, it looks as though the BlackBerry 9105 won’t be coming to North America anytime soon—at least not to the United States or Canada.
This “news” isn’t 100 percent solid quite yet, but I feel confident enough that the Pearl 9105 won’t be coming to the United States or Canada to post on the subject. Here’s why.
First of all, I was in attendance at RIM’s main WES 2010 media event last week, and I asked a company spokesman whether or not the Pearl 9105 would make it to the United States. I got a non-committal answer; something to the tune of “We don’t decide which carriers will release what devices, the carriers do.” But I definitely got the feeling that the Pearl 9105 was not destined for U.S., nor Canadian shores.
What’s more telling: If you surf on over to BlackBerry.com, and choose either the United States or Canada for your location, the Pearl 9105 is nowhere to be seen, even though the Pearl 9100 and Bold 9650 are plastered all over the site. But if you set your location to, say, the U.K. or Germany, the Pearl 9105, T9 and all, pops right up on the front page.
To me, that’s all I really need to see to know the Pearl 9105 is not currently in the cards for any major U.S. carriers. Sure, carriers’ plans could change in the future, but honestly, it really wouldn’t make much sense for RIM or any of its North American carrier-partners to release this unique new device.
As stated by RIM at the WES media event, the new Pearl 9105 is really meant for emerging or small markets where smartphones like the BlackBerry or iPhone haven’t been embraced to the same extent as they have in the United States or Canada. In other words, the new Pearl is aimed at folks who may have never used a full QWERTY keyboard on a cell phone and are, therefore, more comfortable with the numeral-centric T9 keypad.
This makes perfect sense to me, and though I hope North American carriers do release the Pearl 9105, if for no other reason than to offer BlackBerry users more device-choices, I don’t really expect that to happen. (Both T-Mobile and AT&T are expected to begin selling the Pearl 9100 this month.)
So if you’re a U.S. or Canadian BlackBerry user with a hankering for that T9, you may be out of luck…or at least in need of an overseas contact who might be willing to ship you a new Pearl 9105 once it becomes available.
AS
