It’s been a busy couple of months for BlackBerry. Not only has this month seen the launch of the companies two top of the range models in the Storm2 and Bold 9700, a couple of months prior to those launches saw the company aggressively taking on the youth market with the more wallet friendly 8520 Curve. So with the Bold, Storm and Curve families all bolstered over the last few months, what was to become of the Pearl range? Was it destined for the scrap heap or next in line for a new member?

Well, cue the BlackBerry fanatics over at Crackberry.com who got wind of a new addition to the Pearl range; the BlackBerry Pearl 9100. Though yet to be officially announced, Crackberry has an excellent track record when it comes to outing previously unknown devices so we certainly wouldn’t bet against this rumour turning to reality. First things first we’ll take a look at what we know about the phone and in particular not what the Pearl gains but what it looses. With the original Pearl gaining its name from its pearl-like trackball, it may come as a surprise to learn the new model will launch with the new optical trackpad as seen in the 8520 Curve and 9700 Bold. This should definitely be considered as a positive inclusion as the track pad does wonders for precision and usability.

The phone sees return of the SureType QWERTY keypad; a semi QWERTY keypad that places two letters on each key. The keys themselves sit on a pivot so pressing one side will type one letter and hitting the other side will call up the other. Whilst not as easy to use as a full QWERTY keyboard, SureType does allow for a more pocketable device than some of its stable mates. From the leaked images, we can clearly see that the Pearl 9100 will sport a built in camera (no mention of Megapixels yet) with an LED flash. The phone is also rumoured to feature 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity and will run on version 5 of the BlackBerry operating system.

The original members of the Pearl range were unique as they were the first offerings from BlackBerry to focus on multimedia as well as connectivity. This is now a common theme in new BlackBerry releases so, apart from its compact size, what will the new Pearl 9100 offer as its unique selling point? Guess we’ll have to wait for an official announcement from BlackBerry to find out. Keep your eyes on the Blog far all the latest news.