Hasta La Gadget!

The new BlackBerry Pearl 3G actually comes in two models. The 9100, which is coming to AT&T, has a 20-key Pearl keypad with two letters on each key, and the 9105, which hasn’t been announced by any US carrier, has a traditional 14-key phone keypad.

Strange as it is, this makes the 9105 a breakthrough model for RIM. While the vast majority of phones across the world have traditional phone keypads (also known as “9-pads” to some), RIM has never released one before. The company’s focus on texting (and their heritage from the pager world) meant they always thought of messaging first, so even the ancient little BlackBerry 950 had a full QWERTY setup.

Jumping to a phone keypad with SureType predictive texting seems like a step backwards for RIM, but this may dovetail with RIM’s attempt to make the Pearl appeal to first-time smartphone users, especially younger folks and people in developing countries who are used to triple-tapping on a phone keypad.