Airtel and Research In Motion (RIM) on Tuesday announced the launch of BlackBerry Pearl Flipsmartphone in India, priced at Rs 21,990, expanding the choice for the users.

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone allows easy typing and dialing. The smartphone's external display offers previewing calendar reminders, email, text messages and phone calls.

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is a powerful, compact smartphone equipped to deliver a wide range of applications, said Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Services, Airtel.

The combination of RIMs powerful mobile email solution and rich multimedia capabilities, together with support for text messaging, picture messaging, enhanced Web browsing and built-in Wi-Fi, makes the BlackBerry Pearl Flip ideal for balancing a busy lifestyle, a press release said.

Customers can easily share pictures, check the latest sports scores and post on social networking sites, including Facebook, YouTube and MySpace, it added.

This innovative smartphone offers the full power of the BlackBerry platform with advanced communications and multimedia features in a new handset design that is fun and stylish, said Frenny Bawa, Vice-President, India, Research In Motion.

Together with Airtel, we are very pleased to expand the choice of BlackBerry smartphones in India with the new BlackBerry Pearl Flip.