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Blackberry Flip, now available from T-Mobile

October 13th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

We had previously covered the announcement of the Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220, the first flip phone from Research in Motion. RIM had announced the flip in September and starting today, the Pearl 8220 is now available for purchase from T-Mobile.

In addition to the new flip design, the phone supports video recording and playback, a 2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom, stereo Bluetooth® support, and an external memory card slot. The phone also supports Wi-Fi connectivity for both voice and data so buyers can browse the internet and make VOIP phone calls over Wi-Fi hotspots and in-home wireless networks.

T-Mobile will launch the black Flip to start with but a red flip will be launched soon.

RIM is trying to build consumer appeal by coming up with new designs, more inline with what non-enterprise customers want. The flip phones are among the most popular among regular cellphone users.

“The flip phone remains the vastly dominant and preferred design for mobile phones in the United States,” said Leslie Grandy, vice president of product development, T-Mobile USA.

RIM is also trying to woo the iphone generation. The company just last week announced the Blackberry Storm, a full touch screen phone and now has a “me too” solution to compete with Apple’s iPhone. As Smartphone’s go mainstream even outside the enterprise, both RIM and Apple want to take away market share from the others niche. Apple wants to be in the enterprise, a market dominated by the Blackberry, and RIM wants to be among non-enterprise consumers, a market where Apple has been very succesful with the iPhone.

If you are a Blackberry lover and hated RIM them for not making a flip phone, well, the Pearl 8220 is now available for purchase. However, if you are not a T-Mobile user, hard luck, the wait is a bit longer. Pricing details are not available as of yet as the T-Mobile store still say’s “coming soon”. When it’s ready, you can get the pricing here.