The other day Cingular Wireless started taking pre-orders for Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry Pearl from corporate customers through its Premier Web portal. Today, the carrier announced it would start selling the first BlackBerry with a camera, multimedia capabilities, and an expansion slot tomorrow at select retail stores and online through its B2B sales channel. Wider availability of the new smartphone, at most Cingular stores, will start on Monday.

Cingular follows T-Mobile, the second most-subscribed to GSM carrier in the U.S., in launching the Pearl in this country. It will sell the smartphone for $199.99 with a two-year contract after rebates.

Of course, you can't leverage the Internet capabilities that make a phone like this worth while without a data plan, which start at $29.99 for personal e-mail access and web browsing only. Unlimited corporate e-mail access goes for as low as $44.99 a month with a voice plan.

Although the T-Mobile and Cingular Pearls are nearly identical, the latter offers a couple of capabilities the other does not. For example, Cingular's supports the carrier’s Push to Talk service, which costs an additional $9.99 per device. A family Push to Talk plan goes for $19.99. The button on the left side of the Pearl, used to activate voice-control in the T-Mobile version, is used for Push To Talk in Cingular’s edition.

The Cingular Pearl, when used in conjunction with an optional Bluetooth GPS accessory, can also deliver turn-by-turn voice and on-screen driving directions with TeleNav's GPS Navigator for $5.99 per month for 10 trips or $9.99 for unlimited trips.

As with T-Mobile’s Pearl, Cingular bundles a free non-GPS static map application for step-by-step driving directions

“The BlackBerry Pearl from Cingular provides a winning combination of business and entertainment-related applications that make it a great device both for work-time and leisure-time use,” said Cingular VP of business data services Jeff Bradley in a statement. “The iconic yet highly functional design, popular BlackBerry service, and rich music and video features coupled with our Cingular-exclusive capabilities make this a powerful offering that will play well equally in the enterprise and consumer spaces.”

RIM's latest handset is built in the mold of the BlackBerry 7100 series—but is much smaller and sleeker—which means it is more smartphone-like than models like the 8700 series, for example.

As result, the device nixes the traditional BlackBerry QWERTY thumb-keyboard for a keypad/keyboard combo that merges numbers and text onto each button, while RIM's SureType technology helps users accurately input text.

The device measures 4.2 x 2.0 x 0.57 inches (107 x 50 x 14. millimeters) and weighs a mere 3.1 ounces (89 grams).

Pearl's 1.3 megapixel camera comes with built-in flash and 5x digital zoom. You can display images and video (MPEG-4 and H.263) on the new BlackBerry's 240 x 260 pixel color screen, which isn't touch, just like all other RIM handhelds.

To navigate the smartphone you use a trackball - the Pearl in the handset - which, along with the display and keypad/keyboard, adjusts lighting to provide an optimized view in outdoor, indoor and dark environments.

In terms of audio, Pearl will playback MP3 and AAC music files. There's a stereo headset jack. And Bluetooth 2.0 support means you'll be able to wirelessly connect to wireless headsets and stereo headphones as well.

A microSD slot is there to expand upon Pearl's 64 MB of memory.

The quad-band GSM/GPRS world-smartphone is also EDGE-enabled, a 2.5 G cellular technology supported by Cingular and T-Mobile as well as most other GSM carriers. EDGE means you'll be able to send those multimedia messages, browse the Web, access e-mail and other content services at average speeds of 135 kilobits per second.

As with all BlackBerrys, Pearl supports RIM's push e-mail and data access solutions. It also bundles the AOL, Yahoo!, MSN and ICQ instant messaging clients.

For more on the BlackBerry Pearl, see our review.