The BlackBerry Pearl (linking to gizmodo because it's more informative! ) was launched today complete with a 1.3 megapixel camera.I am sure the email features are great. And the web browser is passable (Opera and the Nokia browser are better I bet).

I am sure the Pearl will be a hit for normal people.

Lots of questions (the official Blackberry Pearl site s*cks! Why doesn't it have a proper specs page?): Does ShoZu run on it? Does it run Java? If it does, I assume ShoZu could be easily ported. How good are the photos? I bet they s*ck compared to a modern cameraphones like the N70, N73 and Sony Ericsson 750, 810, etc.

All in all a fine device for the masses it would appear (I haven't tried it).

However for mobile cameraphone early adopters like myself it needs to have a modern camera and ShoZu support and WiFi (most people can't afford to upload more than a handful of photos a month over GPRS or 3G!) before it is compelling enough to buy or want.

I am sure these feature upgrades will happen over time. Until then I am quite happy with Nokia (Nokia add one your great 2 megapixel cameras to the E62 and put back WiFi and you will have a device that is much better than the Pearl!). Vive la competition! Go RIM and Nokia go!

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