Click to play videoBlackBerry handhelds have always been targeted at business professionals who rely heavily on email. Features that made the BlackBerrys different from conventional phones were the focus on sending and receiving email, being called 'email phones', and the full QWERTY keyboard with the thumb wheel that has recently lead to a recognized condition at work, called the 'BlackBerry Thumb' for which a 'BlackBerry Balm' has also been developed.
But the BlackBerrys lacked more mainstream features that made it very unpopular amongst non-business consumers, such as a camera and a media player, along with a friendlier-to-use interface. Devices from other manufacturers have had all of these features, along with a workable email solution, so Research In Motion (RIM) has developed the latest BlackBerry 8100, a.k.a the Pearl.
Look and Feel
I must mention that I hated all the BlackBerrys in the past. I hated the fact that they were so expensive (in India, at least), and they didn’t provide the features that phones half that cost did provide. I hated the unergonomic keyboard arrangement, the monophonic ringtones, and the width of the devices. When I saw the Pearl, all of that was whisked away. The Pearl is beautiful.
What It's Got | Good Stuff | What's Bad! |
1.3 megapixel camera | Stunning looks | No video recording |
| An MP3 player | Trackball to scroll | Cramped keyboard |
| SureType Input | Bright, sharp display | Memory card under battery |
The Pearl is not as wide as earlier BlackBerrys, making it look a bit more like a conventional mobile phone. It’s quite slim and compact, considering it’s a full featured Smartphone in there. The glossy black body coupled with the chrome trims on the side almost make it lustworthy. It was the first time I used the words "I like" and "BlackBerry" in the same sentence. And all this was before I even turned it on.
The display on the Pearl is a 2.5-inch, 65k color TFT LCD. The resolution is 240x260, which is the one used in the last 7100 series. The 8700s use a larger QVGA display, but 240x260 works for the small device that the Pearl is. The display is pretty bright and readable in sunlight as well. It also comes with a light sensor that adjusts the brightness of the device based on ambient lighting conditions.
The thumb wheel so congruous with the BlackBerrys, has been replaced by a glowing trackball in the center, hence the name 'Pearl'. I’ll make 6 million enemies by saying that I hated the thumb wheel and I’m glad to see it go, but the same 6 million would forget about it once they use the Pearl.
For navigating through long pages and lists, the Pearl is the most convenient object.
It is a little too sensitive at first, but that’s only because you’re not used to having such a high-resolution control mechanism on a handheld device.
It is, however, a little difficult to perform short navigation - like moving one character forward or backward.
For those who do that more often, the sensitivity of the Pearl can be adjusted. I’m just wondering what happens a few months down the line when the Pearl gets soiled.
The individual keys on the QWERTY keyboard on the older BlackBerrys have also been replaced by a smarter method of predictive text entry called 'SureType', which made it’s first appearance in the 7100 series.
SureType is similar to T9, but instead of using 0-9 numeric keys, it offers the full QWERTY keypad, just with two keys on one.
SureType detects key sequences and automatically types out words for you.
It’s smart and very convenient, automatically extracting words from your emails and address books, but uncommon words that the technology doesn’t recognize are a little difficult to key in.
The keys are also a little small, leaving no space between each other, so people with large fingers are likely to find it frustrating to use, but the device is so small, this is understandable.
Numbers are available on the three columns in the center, and require a 'shift' modifier when typing them in text mode. At the home screen, these will start keying in numbers directly.
All the keys on the Pearl are small, including the call, end, menu and back keys. The call and end keys are still usable since they are on the top corners of the keypad, but the menu and back keys, which are used a little more in the BlackBerrys than the call and end keys, are inconvenient because of their size. In addition to the keypad, there are also two user-configurable shortcut keys on each side of the phone, a volume control on the left side and a mute button on the top, which can also be used to put the phone in to stand-by mode.
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