Alltel pulls BlackBerry Pearl 8230 into the fold, $79.99 in early May

Here we thought that Verizon was going to ace out the US CDMA market by announcing the 8230 first, but alas, it ends up being Alltel -- the divested chunks of it post-acquisition -- that becomes the first American carrier to trumpet the device. Unlike its GSM sibling over on T-Mobile, the 8230 is a 3G handset equipped with EV-DO, but otherwise, it looks pretty much the same with a QVGA primary display, love-it-or-hate-it SureType keypad, and 2 megapixel cam. It'll hit the "new" Alltel's 2.2 million subscribers in 91 markets come early May for a seemingly reasonable $79.99.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 23rd 2009 1:27PM]

I think it was reported elsewhere earlier this month that US Cellular would be offering the 8230 sometime in June. Perhaps this didn't come from an official announcement, though. Annoying, either way, for someone who's pretty well locked into VZW due to geography. I've been looking forward to getting this handset, but it looks like I'll be better off waiting for Niagara, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.