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You know what people really didn’t talk about much at WES? The BlackBerry Kickstart. Of course, RIM employees couldn’t talk about it, and something tells me that many of the attendees aren’t super-geeky about unannounced new devices. In fact, I didn’t even hear much buzz about the BlackBerry Thunder, which was leaked by BGR on Tuesday. Of course, since the BlackBerry Bold was here and on prominent display, it’s only logical that the buzz revolved around it. I did get a chance to speak about the Kickstart briefly with some folks, though, and my one question remained unanswered: How is this going to compare to the Pearl, apart from the flip?

Clearly, there’s an enormous obstacle preventing people from answering that question at this point. Since the device hasn’t been officially announced yet, we don’t know a whole lot about it. There are some spare details, though. So perhaps looking at them will provide some insight.

Kickstart	Pearl
GSM/GPRS/EDGE	GSM/GPRS/EDGE
“Next Gen” SureType	SureType
2 MP cam	2 MP cam
16-bit color LCD	16-bit color LCD
240×320 internal LCD	240×260 internal LCD
WiFi	WiFi
OS 4.6	OS 4.5 compatible

So now we have a slightly better idea of the known upgrades of the Kickstart. I’m not sure that the “next gen” SureType will be an enormous addition, as it might just be a spell checking function added. The display is a bit taller in comparison to the Pearl, which is to be expected, as there will be more room for the screen.

Perhaps there will be an iPhone/Windows Mobile rotating widescreen capability. It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the difference in screen size. It would certainly leverage the additional screen space on the Kickstart. There isn’t a whole ton you an do with a taller display, but you can do plenty with a wider one.

Other than that, the OS is the only difference. And since we don’t have the official skinny on OS 4.5 yet, it’s tough to speak on that. But OS 4.6 does look pretty sweet, so that is certainly one advantage that the Kickstart will have.

There’s certainly another aspect to this, though. It was brought to my attention my my independent Verizon retailer, on whom I rely for a lot of demographical information.

Her theory is that the flip itself will attract more customers. She sells a ton of BlackBerry devices to high school kids, particularly as graduation presents. Many younger folks simply prefer clamshell models to candybars. So if RIM is going for a consumer focus here, then introducing a clamshell could bolster sales.

In the end, though, this is really about RIM getting yet another form factor onto the market. By year’s end, they should have a few PDA models, a clamshell, a candybar, and a touchscreen. Do you think a slider would be overkill?

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