RIM announces BlackBerry Bold 9650, BlackBerry Pearl 3G

Research In Motion announced two new handsets today, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 the first Bold series handset for CDMA networks, and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G the slimmest blackberry yet, at their annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium in the US. RIM also announced Blackberry Mobile Voice System 5, which provides business users the ability to route calls to their regular desk phone number and extension to their Blackberry smartphone over Wi-Fi networks, enabling potential savings on long distance and international roaming charges.

BlackBerry Bold 9650
The Bold 9650 is the first Bold series handset for CDMA carriers, and runs on BlackBerry OS 5. It has an integrated optical trackpad, a QWERTY keyboard, and a 480x360 resolution display. The Bold 9650 has improved multimedia features, a Media Sync feature that syncs photos and playlists with iTunes and Windows Media Player, access to Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and support for Blackberry App World which has over 6500 applications which are localized in 6 languages. It supports CDMA/EVDO Rev A networks in North America and UMTS/HSPA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks abroad, providing 3G cellular connectivity around the world.

Key Specs:

2.4-inch display 480×360 screen resolution (at 245 ppi).

3.2 MP Camera with Auto Focus

Location Support with Assisted and Autonomous GPS

WiFi Support – 802.11b/g, Bluetooth v 2.1 with A2DP,

512MB Flash Memory (Application Space) and MicroSD Support (up to 32GB)

Full HTML web browser, streaming audio and video via RTSP

Support for OpenGL

1400 mAh battery for 5 hours of CDMA talktime.

Blackberry Pearl 9100 and 9105 An update to the Pearl series, it’s the smallest blackberry yet, the new Pearl series supports 802.11n, the first handset to incorporate it. Sleek and small and fast, RIM considers it to be the sports car of Blackerry smartphones. The phone will be available in two keyboard versions, the Pearl 9100 has a 20-key condensed QWERTY keypad, while the 9105 has a traditional phone keyboard with 14 keys. Both models include SureType software that completes words as the user types, making texting fast and accurate.

Key Specs:

 

Supports tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks

360 x 400 screen resolution

3.2 MP Camera with Auto Focus

Location Support with Assisted and Autonomous GPS

WiFi Support – 802.11b/g/n

256MB Flash Memory (Application Space) and MicroSD Support (up to 32GB)

Voice over Wi-Fi Calling BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS) provides business users the ability to use their regular desk phone number and extension from their BlackBerry smartphone over cellular networks. Expected to be available later this year, version 5, will let employees make and receive enterprise calls on their BlackBerry smartphone over a Wi-Fi connection.

From the release: “Businesses that have employees working for home will be able to keep their staff accessible through their work phone number and keep calling costs under control. Employees also benefit from the convenience of a single work phone number shared between their desk phone and BlackBerry smartphone. ”

Key features include: Wi-Fi network access controls to set which Wi-Fi networks employees can access Network preference settings with the option of prioritizing the use of Wi-Fi or cellular for making phone calls Authentication to help ensure that only authorized BlackBerry smartphones have access to the corporate phone system

Incoming call filtering based on allowed and blocked caller lists