ArsGeek

Manufactured by: RIM
Model: 8100c (Blackberry Pearl)
Retail: $499.99

I received my shiny new Blackberry Pearl last week. The Blackberry Pearl is Blackberry’s new foray into smaller devices, but still attempting to package the same features as their previous models. I’ll have a good basis for comparison, as my last phone was a Blackberry 8700c, one of their older fullsize models.

Hardware features

The first thing I noticed about the Blackberry Pearl is its size – it is approximately half the size of the old 8700c I used to use. It feels solid in my hand, but is not too heavy. One of the big complaints I had with the old 8700c was call quality – mostly due to the inability to easily place the ear speaker over your ear. There is no raised portion of the phone for guiding the ear speaker to the proper position, so you simply have to toss the phone up to your ear, then readjust until the speaker placement is correct. This problem exhibits itself in the Pearl, but to a lesser extent due to its smaller size. It’s a small nitpick, but one worthy of noting.

The Pearl comes with a built-in 1.3MP camera. The photos taken with the camera are only so-so. Even after adjusting the size and quality to ‘fine’, the picture quality isn’t good enough to warrant leaving your digital camera at home. If there is any movement at all, forget about it, the picture is almost guaranteed to be blurry.

The Pearl also features a speakerphone. I don’t use this feature on a regular basis (no need to annoy my co-workers like that), but the sound is good, and the microphone seems to pick up my voice OK, with no complaints from people on the other end.

The biggest change to the new Pearl is the removal of the fullsize QWERTY keyboard, and addition of Blackberrys new SureType keyboard. This keyboard sports two or more characters per key – a feature I was worried about when switching to the Pearl. However, in reality, the feature works great – I can simply type on the keyboard, and the Blackberry has a very high probability of choosing the word I want on the first shot. It takes some getting used to, but once there I am about 85% as fast as I used to be on my old 8100 with the fullsize keyboard. If by chance SureType chooses the incorrect word, you simply use the trackball to choose the word you want. SureType has surprised me with its accuracy and its usability, and I am very happy with the results, especially seeing as the integration of the smaller SureType keyboard enables Blackberry to cut the size of the phone way down.

The second biggest adjustment in coming from the Blackberry 8700c to the Pearl is the removal of the scroll-wheel and the addition of the trackball (the Pearl I would guess) on the front of the phone. I find using the trackball to be intuitive and easy. You can set the sensitivity lower or higher, but I find that it works just find out of the box. Using the trackball definitely makes navigating your email, the menus etc. much easier and quicker than the old scroll-wheel technology. The trackball is also a pushbutton, so navigation is truly a one handed feature.

The Blackberry Pearl also has two programmable feature buttons. I find one of the buttons to be too easy to press (I am constantly brushing it in my holster, and bringing up the voice dialing), and the other too tough, requiring two hands to press (one to hold the phone, the other to press the button). Otherwise, they work as designed.

Software features

To be honest, I don’t use most of the PIM functions built into the Blackberry Pearl. I use it mostly as a phone that integrates with my corporate email, allowing me to receive alerts and high priority messages off hours and on the weekends (I’m a Systems Engineer in real life).

The Blackberry Pearl has the same Microsoft Office integration as its predecessors. Meaning, if you expect to be able to read documents on your phone, you can. If they are simple. Editing a document is tough, as you run into screensize and formatting limitations. Exchange email integration is where the Blackberries shine – and always have. If your organization has the Blackberry Enterprise Server, you can expect to receive emails on your phone at the same time as in your Outlook client – sometimes even faster. Reading and responding to emails is a breeze.

The BlackBerry Pearl includes a Media Player, for Music, Videos, Ringtones and Pictures. I was unable to view simple .wmv files on the Blackberry Pearl, and the manual had zero information on file formats, etc. The picture viewer works, but it previews each file in the file browser, and this takes some time to compute. If you have more than a few pictures in any folder, it can take a while before you can scroll through them to view them. The sound from MP3 files is pretty decent, however it won’t be replacing your dedicated MP3 player any time soon. Ringtone support included Polyphonic, MP3 and MIDI, and all sound adequately good.

Conclusion

All in all, I’m very happy with my new Blackberry Pearl. It excels at what it is designed to do – email and phone. It is adequate for the rest of the functions – but if you wanted a multimedia phone, the Blackberry Pearl woudn’t be at the top of your list. My favorite ‘feature’ has to be the size – no longer do I have to carry a ping-pong paddle sized phone around in order to get the usability of a Blackberry.

Technorati Tags: Pearl, Blackberry, hardware review

Popularity: 1% [?]