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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 48 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Great Phone/PDA, Nice interface & Features"
Pros: Size, clarity of phone, easy e-mail setup
Cons: SureType can be quirky, lousy user guide, worthess online apps
Summary: When my wife wanted to buy me a new phone/PDA for Father's day, I started looking at what Sprint (my current provider) had to offer.
I immediately looked to the RIM Blackberries. I'd read some good reviews on the Pearl and after a false start with a Motorola Q (real piece of junk), I went back to what I should have bought in the first place and picked up a Pearl.
I have to say that at first I wasn't sure if I was going to like it - here's why:
- The SureType keyboard assigns 2 letters to each key (for the most part). Basically you just start typing a word and SureType is supposed to be smart enough to know what you're typing. This works pretty well - most of the time, but at times the results can be pretty frustrating and undoing an unexpected result requires you to backspace start again and sometimes you have to do it more than once. However, with a little practice, I've found that I really like the SureType technology and after figuring out a few tricks (like pressing the "previous" key when it starts to mis-spell).
- The order of the applications provided with the unit made no sense to me. A lot of the worthless apps are first and the ones you use the most (like mail and task list) were further down. Then I learned that you can move the apps in any order you want by highlighting the app and clicking on the blackberry button (which gives you a menu where you can select "Move"). I re-arranged mine so that my top 9 appear on the main screen.
- Dialing from your address book - after I synced with my laptop (with over 200 addresses in my address book) trying to call a number from my address book while in the car suddenly became impossible - until I discovered that by pressing the button on the left side of the unit takes you to "Voice Command". Much better than my old phone - you can literally say "Call" and the first and last name of anyone in your address book and the Pearl will make the call. Does a nice job of confirming home vs. office numbers too.
Of course each of these little tricks I had to pick up on my own because the users guide provided with the Pearl doesn't mention ANY of the ones I mentioned above. The manual to be quite honest only provides the basics and MANY aspects of functionality aren't even discussed at all. The Help function provided with the unit isn't much better.
What do I like about the unit? Just about everything else - great size is smaller than other phone/PDAs with full-size keyboard, the clarity of the phone is excellent (better than any phone I've ever had) and the speaker phone works just as well - I can hear the other person talking while in the car and they can here me, without any distracting background noise.
A few things that I think anyone purchasing the Pearl should do day 1 - purchase a protective case (the one I got is a hard case that snaps over the phone and provides excellent protection, but the gel cases are good too), and a screen protector (the Boxwaveprotectors are excellent).
I didn't get the screen protector immediately and sure enough, I scratched the screen somehow, which gives off a distracting glare at times. This really frustrated me. Then I learned that the "screen" is really only a plastic cover over the real screen and can be replaced (for about $20 if you do it yourself). So the price of a screen protector is well worth the few dollars you'll spend.
The battery life is a little disappointing - I find that it lasts about a day and a half to 2 days, so I just got in the habit of charging it each night when I get home and keep a car charger as well.
The online apps that Sprint provides with the unit are pretty worthless in my opinion, so I don't use Sprint Store and their online TV apps.
If your a corporate e-mail user, you should know this. If you're running Outlook (or other common corporate e-mail clients), the blackberry requires your company be running Blackberry Enterprise Server. For some reason (I suspect license costs), it costs a company more to run this than it does Microsoft. My company only charges employees $5/month if their PDA runs Microsoft Mobile 6.0, but $20/month if you have a Blackberry. That on top of the data plan from Sprint runs into a lot of moola.
But here's how I got around that little problem. Setup "e-mail forwarding" on your Microsoft Outlook (other e-mail clients support this as well), and have your work e-mail forwarded to your personal e-mail. I setup an additional account with my home e-mail provider to keep them separate. Now every e-mail I get at work, comes to my Blackberry as well (and the original is there for me when I connect via my PC). Problem solved and it didn't cost me a dime.
The software (ActivSync) provided with the 8130 allows you to sync up your PC calendar, task list and address book with your blackberry and it works very well.
Setting up your e-mail account with the 8130 is a piece of cake too - just signon to your provider's account, enter your e-mail address and your done....no need to enter POP and SMTP servers.
So, I'm pretty pleased with the Pearl - another nice product from the folks at RIM.
Where to buy
RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130 - dark purple (Sprint):
$29.99
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$29.99 | Yes |
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