Research In Motion (RIM) and Airtel have announced the launch of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone on the Indian market. The handset is the first clamshell released by RIM, one that does not feature the same wide, brick-like body that other handsets do. It rather continues the line of compact devices like the Curve 8900 and the Storm, which can be seen as style examples.
/> The “Blackberry Effect” of the phone is still there, although it sports a flip design. The device comes with all the features found in any other Blackberry, except for the QWERTY keyboard layout. This feature has been replaced with RIMs SureType input technology. While still being labeled in the QWERTY layout, now there are shared keys, and not dedicated ones, like before.