Will Verizon get the Blackberry Pearl? or something similiar?

Rumors are for an 8800-type device. RIMarkable is quoting rianlu on BlackBerryForums:

I was on a call recently with a rim rep. I work for a local carrier on the east coast don’t want to go to specific cuz they said it was mildly confidential but the device will be the 8830. verizon’s looking at may/june and sprint soon thereafter other carriers are looking at august. so far all the test devices have verizon software or atleast the ones we saw. the device will be trackball and will have a few new features some of which have been mentioned. it is quadband but will only be marketed as cdma in north america and gsm in europe and other markets. it will also have a micro sd card slot and has a full media player, music and video!!!!! it will have a built in spell checker 54 MB onbaord data and 16 MB ram. overall it looks pretty cool very similar to the 8800. best features imo are the next two: stereo bluetooth, and extended battery included when you buy. it has 33% more battery life than the standard in the 8703e so should be pretty good. thats pretty much all they told us on the call hope that answers questions and clears up some myths if you have any other questions i can research them and ask our rim rep and see what he says.

Do you guys know if you can put non-blackberry type software on this phone? (for example, medical database programs etc) I've been thinking of getting the 6800 (Titan) or the samsung phone thats coming out because I can put palm or windows mobile aftermarket software on those.

So nothing like the small size of the pearl? A friend just got the blackberry pearl and I just love it.

It will probably come to Verizon . . . someday.

All rumors indicate Q4 for the Pearl and end of Q2 for the aforementioned 8830.

If the 8830 has a camera (god forbid against the corporate folks ... but they don't need multimedia features and stereo bluetooth anyway), it might tide me over till a Pearl sized device is available from Verizon. Got to admit, after I got to play around with a Pearl a bit, I'm amazed how they packaged that device.

Do you mean 3rd party software? Or software written for Palm and Windows.....Yes to the first, no to the second, though there might be emulators out there that will run some palm and windows stuff on a blackberry.

Hi, Today I was speaking with a Verizon store manager in Los Angeles and she said she saw the Blackberry Pearl at Verizon new products meeting. Even she told me to wait until after May to see if that would do what I want. She also said the 8800 model is coming about the same time. She was really focused upon the Pearl, I wonder why! So I think it is going to be here by or in June. Though for me, the Pearl handset ear piece volume is not loud enough. Though the screen is amazing. In bright sunlight I can read anything! The little roller ball is cute, it even flashes. It is a good hybrid for a fun phone which can do email.

Sorry I wasn't clear. Yes, I mean software for palm/windows based pdas.

ya, if thats the case ur outta luck there, but like I said, there might be emulators that will run the software you need on a blackberry

I just cant believe that there are no solid rumors out there about this phone. If it were really going to come out within the next year we would have heard something solid by now. I have been waiting for this phone since last september and I dont even have anything to tease me.

any word on an 8300?

after using the treo 650 since it came out on verizon i think its time for a change... i really like the bb pearl and was even considering changer providers just to get this amazing device.

Says the RIM employee.