Rogers BlackBerry Pearl 8220 (KickStart) pricing released!

Call it the BlackBerry Pearl 8220, call it the BlackBerry KickStart, call it whatever you want, but don’t call it expensive. The latest rumblings along the wireless grapevine seem to point towards Canada’s GSM wireless carrier, Rogers, pushing BlackBerry Pear 8220 (codename: KickStart) as a back-to-school promotion come September.

The back-to-school shopping season is upon us. And, as kids and parents all over North America scramble to equip themselves with all the latest technology that they hope will give them an edge in school (but probably won’t, in all likelihood), Rogers wants to cash in on the shopping-craze with a low-priced BlackBerry Pearl 8220 promotion.

Compared to RIM’s expected retail price of $599.99 for their first-ever BlackBerry flip-phone, the 3-year contract price of just $99.99 sounds like a bargain (even if you are tied to Rogers for three long years). But, Rogers is looking to bust up the competition by offering the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 at a student-friendly $49.99!

Rogers is looking to score big with the college and university-bound set by pricing the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 lower than the price-tag of an average tank of gas (petrol, if that suits you). But, there is a catch. In order to score a BlackBerry Pearl 8220 for $49.99, Canadian students will need to commit to a 3-year contract, sign up for the $45 Student Plan, add on a minimum $15 email plan, and choose one of the $15 or $20 Value Packs.

This is what the $45 Student Plan gets you:

* 450 Weekday Minutes
* Unlimited Evenings and Weekends starting at 6pm
* MY5 Canada-Wide (Unlimited talk, SMS, and MMS to any five numbers in Canada)
* Unlimited Local Incoming Minutes
* $5 off Value Pack for duration of contract

In typical Rogers-fashion, we’ll be seeing inordinately expensive wireless rate plans and data plans for anyone hoping to jump on the Canadian GSM carrier’s 3G network. Students will find that their cheap BlackBerry Pearl 8220 is tied to a $70+ monthly rate plan that will likely suck them dry over three years (these are students, after all).

Still, you can’t beat the $50 price of admission to the BlackBerry clamshell-show. Hopefully T-Mobile will see to it that us Yankees get more fair pricing structures when the Pearl 8220 hits the US. Source...