RIM announces Blackberry 9100 Pearl 3G, coming in May to Bell, Telus and Rogers
This week Research in Motion (RIM), is holding their annual WES event, in sunny Orlando, instead of Waterloo Ontario. On Tuesday they announced their new Blackberry OS 6, which we posted a video of a few posts below. OS 6 is coming later this year, and is RIM’s attempt to catch up to Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 7. Also announced were 2 new handsets, the new Bold 9650, a refresh of last years CDMA Tour, with the optical track-pad, and more RAM (in preparation for OS 6). More interestingly they announced the successor to the best selling Blackberry Pearl, the new Pearl 3G, which is coming to Rogers, Bell and Telus in May.
While we at rgbFilter are always drooling over the latest and greatest powerhouse smartphones, we sometimes loose sight of reality, and that reality is that the vast majority of smartphone sales are lower end, affordable phones, like the Blackberry Pearl and Curve. In fact the first Pearl was the phone that really extended RIM’s reach beyond business users to consumers, 4 years ago. It was a huge success for RIM, and it could almost been seen as a ‘gateway drug’ phone to the more advanced Blackberries. Once they’ve hooked you on the crack(berry), with the Pearl, moving on to the ‘harder’ phones is the natural next step.
The 9100 Pearl 3g is even sleeker, smaller and, dare we say, ‘fashionable’ than the original, and sports a 360×400 screen, 3.2mp camera, optical track pad, wireless N, and OS 5 (it was not made clear if is will be upgradable to OS 6). Based on the ad below, RIM is clearly targeting the very same market that Palm has been (unsuccessfully?) – tech savvy female social networkers. It even looks like they used the same ad agency 🙂
Blackberry 9100 Pearl 3G Commercial, using music by Canadians Tegan and Sara
Palm Pre Commercial
However, unlike 4 years ago, there are many challenges that RIM faces with the new Pearl 3G, and I don’t think it will be nearly as successful as the first one. Firstly RIM themselves have set up the phone to be obsolete in a matter of months – it is rumoured that Blackberry OS 6 will require 512MB of RAM, so the 256MB in the Pearl 3G means that there will be no upgrade path. The kind of users the Pearl 3G targets will not necessarily know enough to hold off buying one of these while they wait for the new OS, and they may not care. At the same time, I think that OS 6 will be such a substantial improvement, and heavily promoted, that potential buyers will want a phone that can run it. Of course there is nothing stopping RIM later releasing a revised ‘9150’ Pearl 3G that does have OS 6.
The biggest threat to RIM though is the other phones in this category that didn’t exist 4 years ago. The 9100 is aimed at social-active young people, who aren’t necessarily looking for the complexity and investment required for a higher end Blackberry, iPhone, or Android based phone. As of now Palm, and soon Microsoft, have phones that fit this need perfectly. While Palm has floundered over the past few months, Wednesday’s announcement that HP is buying them should inject new energy, and expect to see much more marketing of both the Pre, and the Pearl 3G’s direct competitor, the Pixi. Microsoft too has the recently announced KiN 1 and 2 phones coming soon. While the marketing, below, at the moment is aiming these 2 phones at a slightly younger market than the RIM is with the Pearl there is a lot of crossover here.
Microsoft KiN Promo video – Day in the Life
While the KiN is not available yet (but coming to Verizon in the US soon, and maybe Fido in Canada), and no-one has really had a chance to play with it, it really seems to be the one of best designed (both hardware and software), unique looking, low cost social media and messaging phones. Microsoft is really trying to do something different with the OS and while it doesn’t have BBM, nor some of the other organizer features that the Pearl 3G has, the KiN has the potential to become the leader in this space. Could a refreshed Pearl 3G with OS 6 compete?
The Blackberry 9100 Pearl 3G will be available from Rogers, Telus and Bell this May. Bell is rumoured to be launching it on May 13th, for $79.99, on 3 year contract. Telus, who have an exclusive pink version, say it will be $29.99, also on a 3 year term. Rogers has not announced an exact date, or pricing, yet, but expect it to be in-line with what Bell and Telus are offering it for.
