T-Mobile USA, Inc., and Research In Motion today announced the BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip 8220 smartphone - the first BlackBerry flip phone - is now available in the U.S., exclusively from T-Mobile.

The new BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone maintains the popular features and benefits of the BlackBerry Pearl; plus it packs numerous enhancements into the sleek and popular flip design. The spacious keyboard allows easy typing and dialing while the flip design helps protect the large, vibrant internal screen and provides the satisfying finality of ending a call by closing the phone. Customers will also appreciate the external display for previewing calendar reminders, e-mail, text messages and phone calls at a glance.

"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. "Being the first company in the U.S. to offer the unique BlackBerry experience on a flip phone is a huge benefit for T-Mobile customers.”

The combination of rich multimedia capabilities and RIM’s powerful mobile e-mail solution together with support for text messaging, picture messaging, enhanced Web browsing and built in Wi-Fi® makes the BlackBerry Pearl Flip ideal for balancing a busy lifestyle by enabling customers to share pictures, check the latest sports scores or access social networking sites, including Facebook® and Flickr®.

"The BlackBerry Pearl Flip takes all the advanced features and refined usability that customers have come to expect from BlackBerry smartphones and makes them available in a friendly and innovative design,” said Mark Guibert, vice president of corporate marketing, Research In Motion. "Whether they are sending text messages or e-mail, listening to music or simply making phone calls, customers are going to love using this phone.”

In addition to the new flip design, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip also provides an advanced multimedia experience through video recording and playback, a 2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom, stereo Bluetooth® support, and an easily accessible external memory card slot.

The Wi-Fi-enabled phone provides connectivity for both voice and data, as well as support for T-Mobile’s Unlimited HotSpot Calling service offering unlimited, nationwide calling over any accessible Wi-Fi connection including T-Mobile® HotSpot locations nationwide and great in-home coverage.* Whether through a Wi-Fi connection or the T-Mobile network, customers can quickly surf the Web, view pictures, send and receive messages, download documents, and access attachments.

Key features of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip from T-Mobile include the following**:

First BlackBerry smartphone to offer popular flip designWi-Fi-enabled (802.11 b/g) supporting Wi-Fi calling and fast Web browsingSupport for Unlimited HotSpot Calling, offering unlimited nationwide calling over accessible Wi-Fi networks

T-Mobile’s myFavesSM support to stay in touch with those who matter most, with quick, one-click access for instant messaging, e-mailing, texting or calling to your Fave 5SM from the Home Screen

Enhanced SureType® keyboard to support text messaging, picture messaging, instant messaging (six popular clients), personal e-mail (access up to 10 supported e-mail accounts), and corporate e-mail

2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom, built-in flash and video recording (requires microSD card)

Advanced media player for pictures, music and video with full-screen video playback

Stereo Bluetooth® support (A2DP/AVRCP) and 3.5mm stereo headset jack Media management software included on the BlackBerry Tools CD, which allows transfer of music files including sync of desktop iTunes music files Enhanced HTML browser for high-performance browsing with a more desktop-style depiction

Internal QVGA 2.4-inch diagonal screen, 320 x 240 pixels and supporting 65K colors

128 MB of flash memory, 256 MB microSD card included, and support for up to a 16 GB microSD/SDHC card

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi network including support for international roaming

Dimensions: 3.9” x 1.96” x 0.68”

Weight: 3.6 oz

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is now available in T-Mobile retail stores and select authorized dealers, online at http://www.t-mobile.com or by calling 1-800-T-MOBILE. Available at launch in black, the phone is also planned to be available in red in the coming weeks.