With Research In Motion’s latest smartphone, the BlackBerry Pearl 3G, RIM has broken a decade of sticking with the QWERTY keyboard and opted to give the new BlackBerry a more traditional keypad reports an article over on the Guardian.

The RIM BlackBerry Pearl 3G, the details of which we reported earlier, is expected to launch in the United Kingdom by early summer and is the same size as its predecessor but packs an alphanumeric keypad, 3.2 megapixel camera which is up from the original BlackBerry Pearl’s 1.3 megapixels.

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G also features a faster processor delivering twice the speed and supports WiFi, and swaps out the trackball for the new trackpad, so basically one could say the BlackBerry Pearl 3G is a slim version of the BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone.

Furthermore the BlackBerry Pearl 3G marks the first time Research In Motion has developed handsets for different markets with the US BlackBerry Pearl 3G sporting a condensed 20-key QWERTY while the European version sports a 14-key mobile phone pad, and RIM president and CEO, Mike Lazardis has said, “The BlackBerry Pearl 3G is unlike any other smartphone in the world and we expect a broad range of new and existing customers will be drawn to its powerful features and compact design.”