Just ahead of this week’s WES conference, Research In Motion unveiled two new devices: The CDMA-based BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G. As the name implies, the Pearl now supports 3G for the first time. It is also the first BlackBerry device to support 802.11 n Wi-Fi.
The BlackBerry Bold 9650 will be powered by BlackBerry OS 5.0. It will come with CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and single-band (2100MHz) UMTS/HSPA connectivity, a 2.44-inch 480 by 360 pixel display, 512MB Flash memory, a full-QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad, GPS, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 3.2MP camera with flash and auto-focus, a microSD card slot (supporting cards up to 32GB), a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 1,400mAh battery.
The BlackBerry Pearl 3G will be powered by a 624MHz processor and BlackBerry OS 5.0. It will come with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA connectivity, a 360 by 400 pixel display, 256MB of Flash memory, built-in GPS, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 3.2MP camera with flash and auto-focus, a microSD card slot (supporting cards up to 32GB), and a 1,150mAh battery. The BlackBerry Pearl 3G will come in two configurations: The 9100 will come with a 20-key condensed QWERTY keyboard while the 9105 will come with a 14-key traditional phone keyboard.
The BlackBerry Bold 9650 will be available in the United States beginning in May. Sprint has already announced that it will offer it for US$199.99 (after a US$100 mail-in rebate) with a two-year contract.
The BlackBerry Pearl 3G will launch with a number of carriers in May.