Casandra Harris Digicel Cayman Head of Marketing

Digicel and Research In Motion (RIM) announced the Cayman Islands launch of the BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip 8220 on Tuesday, 25 November.

A joint press release from Digicel and RIM said the BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip 8220 is “the first BlackBerry® smart phone to come in the popular flip form factor” and is immediately available locally at Digicel stores to both prepaid and post-paid customers.

Digicel is the first telecommunications company to offer the BlackBerry Pearl Flip in the Cayman Islands, the press release said.

Casandra Harris, Digicel Cayman Head of Marketing, said, “Digicel prides itself on giving customers the very best choice and a cutting-edge range of handsets. With the addition of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip smart phone, our customers have a wider selection of BlackBerry models to choose from so there’s a suitable BlackBerry smart phone to satisfy the varying needs and preferences of our customers.”

Mark Guibert, RIM Vice-President Corporate Marketing, also expected the new smart phone to be a hit with consumers: “The BlackBerry Pearl Flip smart phone is a natural choice for customers who are looking to replace their existing flip phone with something more powerful,” he said.

The press release said the device “provides flip phone fans with all the power of a BlackBerry smart phone in a fun and familiar design.”

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is a quadband phone, which means it will operate on most cell phone network frequencies around the world.

The smart phone’s external display allows the user to preview incoming emails, text messages and phone calls without opening the handset.

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 includes a range of features including phone, email, messaging, organiser, browser and multimedia applications. The device also offers a 2 mega pixel camera with flash and an enhanced HTML browser that supports video streaming.

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip weighs 3.6 ounces and measures approximately 3.9” x 1.9” x 0.7” yet, says the press release, offers premium phone features such as voice recognition, voice-activated dialling, MP3 ring tones, conference calling, speed dialling, call forwarding, voicemail attachment playback and enhanced background noise cancellation. It also features a speakerphone and Bluetooth® 2.0 for use with hands-free accessories.

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is available from Digicel for $459 on prepaid service and $429 with a post-paid contract.

For more information on the BlackBerry Pearl Flip, visit www.BlackBerryPearl.com.