Camera Phones Plaza

OtterBox, a company that has developed rugged cases for many mobile devices, including Palm's Treo smartphones and Hewlett-Packard's (HP) iPAQs, is now offering BlackBerry users a way to ruggedize their devices. The OtterBox 1930 and the OtterBox 1931 promise to waterproof and dustproof as well as drop and crush protect RIM's BlackBerry 8700 series and 7200 series.

Cases provide water-resistant access to keypad, scroll wheel, escape button, power button, mute button, sync/charge jack, headphone jack, and programmable side button. And the LCD remains protected from scratches and drop damage with a rigid screen cover, while an acoustic membrane allows for sound transmission.

Otterbox Web site lists the BlackBerry 8700 series case for $129.95, while the model for the BlackBerry 7200 series, the company explained to PDAStreet, will be out soon for the same price.

Via otterbox.

T-Mobile got the Pearl a few months before Cingular did, and now also launched the white-colored version, which until now was available in black only. The one is identical in design and specifications, and is offered for $150 with a 2-year contract with MyFaves.

The specs are pretty much identical to the black counterpart with a 1.3 megapixel camera, Blackberry push email, 240×260 pixel display, Quad-band GSM/EDGE, etc.

Via mobileburn.

After being released by T-Mobile USA on September 12, it's now Cingular's turn to finally launch the BlackBerry Pearl.

The BlackBerry Pearl comes equipped with a 65k color display (240x260 pixels), a 1.3 megapixel camera with flash, Media player with MP3, AAC, MPEG-4 support, 64MB memory, Push to Talk, Trackball, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD card slot and SureType keyboard.

Cingular is selling the BlackBerry Pearl for $199.99 with a $50.00 mail-in rebate and a 2-year contract.

Via engadget.

The guys at mobileburn made a review of the BlackBerry Pearl, which is available with T-Mobile. And their conclusion is that the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is the most phone like BlackBerry device ever. It has the looks and size of a regular handset, yet offers smartphone functionality and the best push email system I have used.

Its user interface might seem a bit vast and archaic to the uninitiated, but the typical road warrior user will manage to adapt to it very quickly. The issue is that the general consumer will be less willing, or capable, to deal with that learning curve. As such, RIM has a long way to go before it can expect mass acceptance of their phones by Joe Consumer.

But with that said, they still think that the Pearl 8100 is a fantastic phone. It has the basic multimedia capabilities that people want, it is small and compact, yet it offers great text input and a novel trackball for navigation. They give it a "Highly Recommended" rating in spite of the trackball problem that caused me to miss a number of calls. Hopefully RIM will come up with a firmware fix for that soon.

Read full review on mobileburn.

engadget presents the first photos of the new BlackBerry 8100. Here are their first impressions.

"The stealthy BlackBerry Stealth slinks behind the scenes no more. It's the BlackBerry 8100 and it's got a camera, microSD slot, EDGE data, and media playback functionality -- just like we'd expected (so where's the damn WiFi?). This should be due in November on Cingular (no guarantees), but something tells us to expect an even earlier launch on T-Mobile. Perhaps it's the T-Mobile branding. We can't tell you much else as of right now, but big ups to Random Asian Dude for the hookup. Click on for a bunch more pics."