Pearl 3G: has wi-fi.

This month sees the European launch of the smallest-ever BlackBerry. Called the BlackBerry Pearl 3G or the Pearl 9100, it is the first Pearl to support 3G and 802.11n wi-fi.

The brand, which tends to be favoured by corporate users over Apple’s iPhone, is looking to gain ground among mobile users ‘new to the smartphone market’ and currently only likely to be using a ‘feature phone’.

A compact ‘candybar’ shape, RIM’s new Pearl measures 108 mm x 50 mm x 13.3 mm with a 360 x 400 pixel display, and weighs only 93 g. It runs the latest available version of the company’s operating system, BlackBerry OS 5.

There’s an optical track-pad underneath the screen for thumb-based navigation but, like its predecessor, this latest Pearl has a traditional alphanumeric keypad, rather than the full Qwerty format found on many other BlackBerrys. It also features GPS and a 3.2 megapixel camera.

If you need a full Qwerty keyboard, this month also sees the release of RIM’s updated Bold smartphone – the Bold 9650. It boasts an optical track-pad, GPS, 3G and wi-fi, although not 802.11n.

The company recently demonstrated the upcoming version of its operating system – BlackBerry OS 6 – including the new WebKit browser. This is due for release in the third quarter.