BlackBerry gets out of the boardroom with Pearl

RIM has officially confirmed what many in the industry had been expecting: a move into the consumer world with a sleeker, lighter device.

The Canadian company has launched the Blackberry Pearl - also known, albeit in a slightly more workaday manner, as the 8100.

The Pearl will ship from October in the UK and is aimed squarely at the 'prosumer' and consumer market, where RIM is tempted by the prospect of turning itself from a niche enterprise player into a consumer box-shifter.

RIM has become increasingly challenged in the enterprise market for mobile email, with handset makers including Motorola and Nokia seeking to ape the BlackBerry's success with similar form factors. According to some analysts, the giant has been struggling of late. Strategy Analytics said RIM lost five points of mobile email market share in the half of this year.

Larry Conless, RIM's COO, said: "This is a major breakthrough for the company. It's our attempt to take the BlackBerry out of the boardroom." The Pearl will be the first in a series of devices for consumers, RIM said, adding its new consumer interest won't distract it from churning out enterprise mobiles.

Nick Spencer, analyst at research company Canalys, said the device may end the tendency for RIM's customers to carry both a phone for voice and a BlackBerry for data: "I think the Pearl ends this trend - it can be used on its own for both professional and consumer lives."

While no pricing details have been unveiled and no operators have yet confirmed if they will offer the device, RIM says it has signed deals with "most major European carriers". T-Mobile and Vodafone are almost certainly two of them.

As well as targeting a new market, the Pearl presents a whole other surprise: the death of the clickwheel. The cause of 'BlackBerry thumb' has been removed for reasons of space and replaced with an opaque trackball centred under the screen, which gives the Pearl its name.

Along with all the usual suspects application and functionality-wise - email, web browser, expandable memory - the Pearl includes another major departure for the BlackBerry: a camera.

The Pearl sports a 1.3 megapixel snapper, somewhat outpaced by the two and three megapixel cameras now regularly included in consumer devices. Conlee said: "It's a trade-off between size and capability. We thought 1.3 megapixels was adequate... it's something you need but it's not why you buy [a phone]."

The device has also, like so many others, taken a lead from the Motorola Razr and gone thin and light, weighing in at just over three ounces and measuring roughly half an inch deep.

According to Conlee, RIM has been cracking the whip on its industrial designers to thin down the Pearl. "We've done a lot of hard work to make it much more attractive," he noted

According to Ben Hughes, course director of Central Saint Martins' industrial design MA, space in mobiles will remain at a premium.

He said: "The prime focus of mobile device design remains closely aligned to functionality, particularly where features, interface and software are concerned. Every company is chasing the latest trend in 'form factor' or material, while still trying to pack as much into the smallest space possible."