By Richard Adhikari - TechNewsWorld - 04/26/10 12:20 PM PT

Research In Motion presented two new smartphones Monday to add to its Pearl and Bold lineups. It also unveiled a new voice over WiFi feature. Some investors were expecting news about a new BlackBerry OS as well, but that came later in the day when one of RIM's coCEOs spoke about a handful of details regarding the upcoming software.

Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) on Monday unveiled two new BlackBerry smartphones and a voice over WiFi feature to its voice technology  

The new devices are the BlackBerry Pearl 3G and the BlackBerry Bold 9650.

The new BlackBerry Pearl 3G measures 4.25 by 1.96 by 0.52 inches and weighs 3.3 ounces. It has a 624 MHz processor with 256 MB of flash memory and a microSD/SDHD memory card slot that supports cards of up to 32 GB capacity.

Other Pearl 3G features are an optical trackpad and a keyboard; a media player for videos, pictures and music; and dedicated media keys. It also has a 3.2 megapixel (MP) camera with zoom, autofocus, video recording capability and flash.

The Pearl 3G has a built-in GPS, photo geotagging capabilities, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 support. It also has voice-activated dialing, a speakerphone and support for various headsets.

Further, the Pearl 3G has a removable, rechargeable battery that provides about 5.5 hours of talk time on 3G networks. It will be available in two models and will be available from different carriers in May.

Details of the Bold 9650

The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is a global smartphone that supports 3G EVDO networks in North America and HSPA/UMTS networks overseas. It measures 4.4 by 2.4 by 0.56 inches and weighs 4.8 oz. The device has a full QWERTY keyboard, an optical trackpad and built-in WiFi so users can talk on the phone while browsing the Web or dealing with email  .

The Bold 9650 has 512 MB of flash memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports microSDHC cards of up to 32 GB. It comes with a 2GB microSDHC card.

The 9650 has a 3.2 MP camera with flash, variable zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording capabilities. It has an advanced video player for videos, pictures and music; a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack; and support for the Bluetooth Stereo Audio Profile.

The 9650 offers access to Facebook; MySpace and Flicker; and supports various instant messaging services. It offers a full HTML Web browser and supports streaming audio and video. The device has a built-in GPS with support for geotagging. Other features include voice activated dialing, a speakerphone and support for Bluetooth 2.1.

The Bold 9650 has a removable, rechargeable battery that supports 5 hours of CDMA talk time. It will be available in May.

Voice Over WiFi

RIM also announced BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 with voice over WiFi calling on Monday. This works with Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) Unified Communications Manager. It lets enterprise users leverage their workdesk phone numbers and extensions on their BlackBerry smartphones.

Users will be able to make and receive business calls over a WiFi connection. Enterprise IT can set which WiFi networks employees can access. Network preference settings let IT prioritize the use of either WiFi or cellular for making phone calls.

The WiFi feature could be favorably received by businesses. "If you're an enterprise user and go from campus to campus and have WiFi connectivity between campuses, you'll save a lot of minutes," Ramon T. Llamas, a senior research analyst at IDC, told TechNewsWorld.

"I think it's a good response to RIM's vast enterprise base," he remarked. "Now you see enterprises moving towards unified communications and wanting to be connected at all times. By letting them do this while saving some money at the same time through using voice over WiFi, RIM's scored a major coup."

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