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A hands-on look at BlackBerry Pearl 3G

Research in Motion unveiled its latest offerings on Monday at WES 2010, including the BlackBerry Pearl 3G, which includes 802.11n wireless
By Joseph Hanlon, Contributor
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1 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

On Monday, RIM unveiled the BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone at the company's Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2010 conference in Orlando, Florida.

The smartphone is the first BlackBerry handset to feature 802.11n wireless connectivity, and ZDNet UK's sister site ZDNet Australia was at the conference to get a hands-on look at the device.

Martin Gaston of ZDNet UK contributed to this gallery.

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2 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G is RIM's smallest smartphone to date, measuring 108mm high, 50mm wide and 133mm deep. It weighs 93g, and has a screen resolution of 360x400 pixels.

RIM said it is aiming to attract users who are more familiar with the look and feel of a traditional phone rather than a modern smartphone.

Here, the smartphone is shown in black, but it comes in a variety of colours.

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3 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G comes with two keypad options: the 9105 model (pictured) of the BlackBerry Pearl 3G includes a standard 14-key numeric keypad.

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A close-up view of the BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100, which has a 20-key condensed Qwerty keypad.

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The BlackBerry Pearl 3G runs on BlackBerry OS version 5, similar to the Bold and Storm models.

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A close-up of BlackBerry OS 5's built-in browser.

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7 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

BlackBerry Pearl 3G's media player, showing a pre-installed video of an episode of animated sitcom Family Guy.

The screen, with a resolution of 360x400 pixels, displays accurate colour representation and image sharpness.

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8 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

A selection of media controls run across the top of the BlackBerry Pearl 3G.

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9 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

A 3.5mm headphone socket is placed on the left side of the BlackBerry Pearl 3G.

 The device also supports microSD/SDHC cards up to 32GB.  

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10 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G is available in various colours alongside the familiar black design.

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11 of 11 Joseph Hanlon/ZDNET

Perhaps the most vivid choice of colour is hot pink.

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