BlackBerry
Pearl Flip 8220

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 was RIM's first clam-shell design. It had a qwerty keypad and internal QVGA screen as well as a smaller external display for previewing e-mails, messages and calls. The device also featured a two-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi support and a microSD slot. The introduction of a flip design to the Pearl range was designed to help RIM sustain its momentum in the consumer market. This had been growing as a result of the success of the original Pearl and the company’s Curve device, which was regularly spotted being used by a growing number of celebrities. Offering the Pearl device with a flip design was considered an astute move to attract consumers in North America given this was RIM's single biggest market. At the time, RIM estimated that two-thirds of US consumers used a clam-shell phone and believed many consumers had not bought a BlackBerry simply because of its shape. The Pearl Flip was also designed to maximise RIM’s economies of scale. It reused the same battery and screen from the Curve as well as other components that were common to all BlackBerry devices.