The BlackBerry Pearl 8130 is a smart phone which was released in 2006. The Pearl is BackBerry's cheaper option for those looking for a quality smart phone, without initially spending a lot for it. You can read the reviews of the more expensive BlackBerry phones, the Curve, and the Tour. The review of the largest BlackBerry competitor, Apple's iPhone, can be read here!
The Pearl looks stylish enough. It is thin, sleek, and comes in a variety of colors, including red, silver, black, and blue. It features a large 2.25 inch, full color screen. Below the screen is the trackball, which allows the user to select options on screen, and control the mouse when browsing the internet. The sides of the phone include two hot-keys, which can be assigned different functions, such as key lock or quick access to the 2.0 megapixel digital camera. They keyboard is underneath the trackball, and includes a QWERTY keyboard, with most buttons being responsible for two letters. It would be nice to have each key responsible for only one letter, but this would also make the phone much wider. The phone comes with bluetooth capabilities, a street map program (similar to Google Maps), and is able to run a GPS program, available from Verizon.
Features like this will make one quickly notice that the Pearl is not a normal mobile phone. The term given to phones such as this, "Smart Phone," means that it is able to do more than make calls and send text messages. The Pearl is for someone on the go, who may not always be near a computer. Sending and receiving emails, browsing the internet, downloading applications, and wireless syncing the Pearl to a home computer are just some of the advanced features that BlackBerries offer. In the past, it was too difficult to integrate this technology in a way that was easy and efficient for the user -- one example being early Palm Pilots. The technology and software simply wasn't available to make these devices as small or as useful as Palm would have liked. Thus, BlackBerry needed to deliver good software along with its impressive technology so that it, too, wouldn't fall by the wayside.
Thankfully, the Pearl delivers. The BlackBerry software is easy to use. Icons are used, much like a home computer, to distinguish different programs that can be run. Furthermore, texting or writing emails is not hard thanks to BlackBerry's "SureType" software, which is pretty good at making an educated guess at which word the user is attempting to write. Because the Pearl acts as a mini computer, it also includes some of the less desirable aspects of computers, such as loading periods, and periodic slowdowns if the system memory becomes full. However, being similar to a computer allows the Pearl to achieve tasks that a standard home computer can do in a seamless fashion, which is good because it allows the user to put less thought into how to use the phone, and more thought into the upcoming presentation, event, or meeting.
To make the Pearl even easier to use, BlackBerry recently introduced the BlackBerry App World, which is their response to Apple's Application Store on the iPhone. App World is basically an online store in which users can download programs (some free, some not free) for their phone. Programs range from entertainment, such as Pandora for listening to streaming music, to communication, like Google Talk, with everything in between. However, App World is just slow in general. It takes longer than it should to load, and downloading even small applications can take several minutes. The diversity of applications is not as wide as that on the Apple counterpart either. At least BlackBerry is trying, I suppose.
My biggest gripe with the Pearl is its durability. It is not water resistant at all -- a friend of mine with a Pearl damaged the phone from only sweating while it was in his pocket. In addition, the trackball tends to stop functioning on about one out of every three phones (in my experience), and the surface is easily scratched. I cringe each time I accidentally drop the Pearl, never knowing if it will continue to function afterward. A phone must be durable to be completely functional and reliable, and the Pearl leaves something to be desired.
It's all well and good that the Pearl can send and receive email, take video and still pictures, be used as an mp3 player, hold hundreds of phone numbers, etc, but what is most important is how it functions as a mobile phone. It is in this category that the Pearl is truly outstanding. The Pearl has very good signal strength and call quality on the Version network. It drops very few calls, and can even be used in some underground locations -- usually a complete dead-zone for mobile phones. The Pearl allows the user to access text messages and emails during a phone conversation, which can be useful for those of us who may be a bit forgetful.
And better yet, this great signal strength doesn't come at the cost of battery life. BlackBerry reports that the phone is able to be on standby (not actively using the phone) for 9 days, and an impressive 3.7 hours of talk time. After using the phone for over a year, I would agree with these numbers. Battery life is mostly dependent on how heavily the phone is used -- the more its used, the shorter the battery will tend to last.
The quality of the Pearl comes at a cost, though. Verizon requires that all BlackBerry users upgrade to their BlackBerry Nationwide data plan, which allows unlimited data transfer (which includes email, texts, pictures, internet browsing, etc) and call minutes. This translates to $99 per month. There are one time fees too, such as the purchase of the phone (which is greatly reduced when buying a service plan with it) and activation fees.
The BlackBerry Pearl is one of those objects which one might not think would be useful. Why pay so much money for being able to send emails and browse the internet? This question alone keeps many young adults from using the Pearl. However, once one becomes accustomed to its design, features, ease of use, and call quality, he or she will question how survival was possible without one. Thus, even though the phone isn't too durable, it's features and general ease of use has made it one of my favorite mobile phones that I've ever had the pleasure of owning.
Thank you to BlackBerry.com for specifications, and to guitarmasterclass.net for the photo.
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