In the wee hours of this morning, I received an email with a photo of the forthcoming (couple of weeks at most, apparently) new Cingular BlackBerry Pearl.
I should point out that the source who sent this to me has proven quite reliable in the past, and I have no cause to doubt the authenticity of what I am about to show you.
With the caveat that yes, this shot- well put it this way- ain't gonna be hangin' in your local photo art gallery any time soon,let's see what is at least officially still under wraps.
I went in to Photoshop and did some basic image resizing of the Cingular BlackBerry Pearl image that has been making the rounds of the blogosphere the last 24 hours or so.
That's the original image up there on the right.
When I captured the device itself, opened up the image and then blew it up, it gets blurry and borderline pixel-y.
But so many of you care, and I care what you care about that... as the kid used to say at the end of the X-Files...
Although a formal announcement has not yet been made, it seems as though the Vonafone U.K. site is now listing the BlackBerry Pearl.
The banner is at the top of this post.
Vodafone's site also refers to a six-month half-price "line rental" promotion for the Pearl. The promotion also appears to entail free Pearl's for most pricing plans.
Let's see what pricing plans Vodafone is offering for the Pearl.
Roc a Fella, known as an in-the-know source on future BlackBerry, found what appears to be a marketing brochure shot of the fortthcoming Cingular BlackBerry Pearl. .
Michael from our sister site Engadget Mobile, likes what he sees.
"In our opinion," Michael writes, " the new color is a welcomed change and it breaks up the bland keypad by removing the black coloring on the bottom half of the numeric keys, and lightening up the color of the brushed metal on the side of the phone."
In Bryson Gilbert's Flickr photostream (linked below this post) he now has three photos of his new T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl 8100 lined up with his old T-Mobile BlackBerry 7100t.
The photo you are looking at above shows the Pearl on top of the 7100t. Plainly, the Pearl is smaller.
The front view of both devices side by side points out the size difference even more definitively.
Just announced today, pearlTunes is a new utility that lets you automatically copy and covert unlicensed music from Apple iTunes running on Windows PCs to your Pearl.
Made by Information Appliance Associates, pearlTunes copies MP3s and other unprotected digital music from selected playlists on iTunes for Windows to the MicroSD memory card on the user's BlackBerry Pearl. With these tunes on your MicroSD, you can then copy them to your Pearl.
The pearlTunes software costs $9.95. The link to the download page is in the Read prompt below this post.
But what about copyrighted music?
Info about that, as well as a big screen cap with all that's going on, right after the break.
Writing on the website of the (Toronto) Globe and Mail's newspaper, Jack Kapica makes an interesting claim:
Moto RAZRs are for men, BlackBerry Pearls are for women.
"The sleek RAZR, despite its candy-floss siblings, is still largely a masculine phone, to be wielded by flinty-eyed executives hoping to look unafraid to make life-and-death decisions," writes Jack. "Its name implies beard-shaving, its shiny body suggests swords and daggers, and its flip-phone form recalls early Star Trek communicators."
But the Pearl? For the sisterhood of the x chromosome.
A BBHub reader, who didn't want us to use his name, sent me a Pearl photo that is interesting not because of any ooh-aah factor, but because of what it represents.
The Pearl photo is of the opening screen in a Windows Vista installation.
So if this were one of those Humanities classes where we have to interpret art, I might say something like "in this piece, the photographer is combining the manifestation of mobile cellular photography with the process of transitioning his desktop PC to a new reality.
Our buddy Craig Johnston of the Mobile Computing Authority podcast series turned over a significant portion of yesterday's Mobile Computing Authority podcast (MCA 018: Pearly News) to a thorough review of the BlackBerry Pearl.
As the sun set last night for the last such event in this year's Daylight Savings Time cycle, BBHub reader Scott found himself on the shore at Manhattan Beach, California.
In case you are wondering where Manhattan Beach ,California is, let our peeps at MapQuest supply the technology for us to give you an idea of where he took the photo I am getting ready to show you.
Howard Forums Member tumster is wondering whether the chargers that came with his BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola RazrV3 and Motorola H605 Bluetooth headsets are interchangeable.
"Although the voltage is the same, the amps are different," he writes. "Based on what I have read in other threads, the charger should be safely interchangeable."
Tumster then qualifies his only reason for doubt.
"My thinking is that the Razr charger at 850mA may be a little high for the Pearl," he adds. "But then they all charge from the computer USB port the same..."
When it comes to authoritative answers in this question, fellow Howard Forums Member H-bomb's response is da bomb:
I'm thinking that because Standard Time starts tomorrow in most of the U.S. (Arizona and Hawaii observe ST year-round), and the sun will set an hour earlier, then all you BlackBerry Pearl users will go out one last time to take as many daylight shots as you can.
Then you will choose the one(s) you like the best, and send 'em to me at russjourn@gmail.com.
Which, according to sternthinker, is annoying but the right choice.
Sternthinker is Phil Stern, a Toronto-based business planning consultant, owner of Stern Thinking and for our purposes here, a commenter on blogger Mark Evans, um, blog.
Mark, who I know from the VoIP world, is a long-time Canadian technology and business journalist with a national reputation.
Mark writes that he's not going to get a BlackBerry Pearl because it ain't a QWERTY. Mark is going to wait for the 8800, as many of you are as well.
But it is sternthinker's thoughts that have me thinking.
I've noticed some free video clips up on the BlackBerry movies site.
All these clips are said to be playable on the BlackBerry Pearl.
Not entirely positive about the rights and permissions, but nevertheless, I thought you might be interested about this resource.
The newest featured clip is a music video of "romise" by Ciara. There's also a "Spider-Man 3" trailer (displayed at right) and videos by Ludacris, Shakira, and Justin Tmberake.
"Can any man fight the darkness?" I've asked myself that question more than once in my life.
I went in to Photoshop and did some basic image resizing of the Cingular BlackBerry Pearl image that has been making the rounds of the blogosphere the last 24 hours or so.
Roc a Fella, known as an in-the-know source on future BlackBerry, found what appears to be a marketing brochure shot of the fortthcoming Cingular BlackBerry Pearl. .
