In addition to Wi-Fi, you also get Bluetooth 2.0. Supported profiles include those for mono and stereo Bluetooth wireless headsets, hands-free kits, and serial port. Unlike the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 for Verizon Wireless, the Pearl 8120 doesn't include a GPS radio. To add real-time tracking, you will have to use a Bluetooth GPS receiver.
As for voice features, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is a quad-band world phone and offers a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, and speed dial. The handset also features advanced audio technology that's supposed to cancel out background noise and echoes and will automatically increase the volume when you're in a noisy environment. The address book is limited only by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) with room in each entry for eight phone numbers, e-mail addresses, work and home addresses, job title, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo to a contact as well a group category--business or personal--or one of 32 polyphonic ringtones. Finally, the Pearl also supports AT&T's Push to Talk (PTT) services, which gives you instant access to your contacts. PTT plans start at $9.99 per month.
And what would a BlackBerry be without e-mail? Like other models, the Pearl 8120 can sync with your company's BlackBerry Enterprise server, with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise, to deliver corporate e-mail in real time. With BlackBerry Internet Service, you can also access up to 10 personal/business POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts. The smartphone is equipped with a spell-check feature that will look for errors in e-mails and memos but not text messages. Plus, there's an attachment viewer that opens popular file formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Corel WordPerfect, PDF, JPEG, GIF, and more. Instant messaging fans may be disappointed to find out that the Pearl 8120 only comes preloaded with the proprietary BlackBerry Messenger client.
There are several sources of entertainment on the BlackBerry Pearl 8120. First, the built-in media player allows you to enjoy your favorite MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, and MIDI music files, and MPEG4, WMV, and H.263 video clips. You can now search for songs on the smartphone, create playlists on the fly, and shuffle and repeat songs, and there's a full-screen mode for video playback. To get media onto the Pearl, just use the USB cable for drag and drop, and the process should be swift, thanks to high-speed USB support (around 10MB per second). The included software CD also contains a copy of Roxio Easy Media Creator, so you can create MP3s from CDs and add audio tags. There's 64MB of flash memory onboard, but we'd load multimedia files on a microSD/SDHC card to conserve storage. The expansion slot can accept up to 8GB cards. Alternatively, if you're looking for some fresh content to listen to on the go, there's support for the AT&T Music service, which includes streaming XM Satellite Radio.
Finally, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is equipped with an upgraded 2-megapixel lens (from 1.3 megapixels), complete with video recording capabilities. For still images, there's a 5x zoom and flash, as well as three picture sizes and three quality options. You also get white-balance settings and several color effects you can add to the photo. Meanwhile, video options are bit more limited with just two video formats (normal or multimedia message), three color effects, and a video light.
Overall, we were happy with the picture quality. Objects were clearly defined, but colors lacked a bit of warmth. Video quality was pretty poor , as our recorded clips looked discolored and jerky.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120 in San Francisco using AT&T service and call quality was fair but not spectacular. Despite claims of wind, echo, and background noise cancellation, we could hear a slight background hiss during our phone calls, though it never prevented us from carrying on a conversation or interacting with our bank's automated voice response systems. Friends said audio quality was just "OK," and they could tell we were using a cell phone. However, they were impressed with the speakerphone, as calls sounded clearer,while we found sound to be a bit hollow. Finally, we had no problems pairing the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset or the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.
General performance was snappy. There was a slight speed bump when we activated the camera, but otherwise it was smooth sailing and we didn't experience any system crashes during our testing period. Browsing the Web on AT&T's EDGE network was painfully slow, having experienced the joys of EV-DO on the BlackBerry Pearl 8130. Luckily, the Pearl 8120 was able to immediately detect and connect to our test Wi-Fi access point, and we were able to continue surfing without problem. Multimedia performance was pretty good. Songs sounded slightly hollow through the phone's speakers but thanks to the 3.5mm headphone jack, we were able to plug in a decent pair of headphones and enjoy our tunes that way. Video
The RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120's 900mAh lithium ion battery is rated for 4 hours talk time and up to 15 days of standby time. In our battery drain tests, we were able to get 5.5 hours of continuous talk time on a single charge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Pearl 8120 has a digital SAR rating of 1.48 watts per kilogram.
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