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RIM Blackberry Pearl

83

Very Good
  • Pros
  • Stellar messaging capabilities
  • Adds a camera
  • Cons
  • Lacks a full QWERTY keyboard
  • Keys can be difficult to press

User Reviews for RIM Blackberry Pearl

  • Reviewed by: GypsyJon

    Duration of ownership: 6 Months

    Strengths: It is a good phone that you can check email on.

    Weaknesses: Its PDA functions are poor. This is the first phone I have had since 1996 that does not know when you enter a different time zone. You have to "tell" it which time zone it is in. Further, when you change time zones, ALL YOUR APPOINTMENTS CHANGE by the same number of hours!! This is a terrible software weakness that I never was told about until I bought the thing.

    Overall Evaluation: Fair at best, but generally poor. Easiest way to enter calendar data is to use Google Calendar, sych it with Outlook on you computer then sych the Blackberry with Outlook. The Blackberry has been way way oversold. Can not wait until I am due for an upgrade and I will ditche my Pearl.

  • Reviewed by: zemus00

    Duration of ownership: 9 Months

    Strengths: Easy to use, great sound quality

    Weaknesses: Not much memory space without memory card

    Overall Evaluation: I loved this phone for about the first 6 months until it randomly started deleting my messages and call logs. It would even delete messages before I ever got them! After a good bit of digging it turns out my phone was just out of memory, but instead of telling me, it just started deleting things. A few times there were important numbers just in my log that were deleted, and it was extremely irriting. So BEWARE of the memory on this phone. If I get another Blackberry I will probably just buy a memory card right out to avoid all the trouble. Other than that, it's probably my favorite phone I've ever had. I suppose everything has its downsides!

  • Reviewed by: etmargallo

    Duration of ownership: 3 Weeks

    Strengths: Has a sleek, compact design and not wide like other PDA/Smartphones. The screen colors look very crisp and clear. The built-in themes/interfaces are actually designed really nice. I like how you can easily add other apps into it, i.e. Gmail, Google Maps, and much more. Battery life seems to be very good as well. The desktop manager is straightforward and easy to use, just drag, drop and copy files. However, I did wish RIM would've made a program with their desktop software to easily manage your address book. Camera is pretty good, also has flash to assist in darker situations. Music player is cool too. You can also put in an extra Micro SD card for more storage.

    Weaknesses: Trackball was weird at first, but got use to it. I like it now though. Haven't gotten scratches yet, but it does seem like it would be prone to getting them. Loudest ring volume doesn't seem loud enough. The settings for the alarm sucks, its too limited.

    Overall Evaluation: This phone is a really good buy. I did the contracting renewing of 2 years. I use to have a RAZR, and I will never buy a Motorola product again. I guess it's too early to tell, but the Blackberry Pearl seems to be built and designed very nicely to last long. It has all the cool basic features and it's especially excellent for messaging and checking email.

  • Reviewed by: uskoala

    Duration of ownership: 1 Month

    Strengths: useability, smart and friendly, everything works

    Weaknesses: Keyboard took a little time to master, but in a day or two it was great.

    Overall Evaluation: Used it up and down California a couple of trips and never out of contact. Now I know why they are called CrackBerrys... it's so much fun it is hard not to use it all the time. The porting of address book and calender was a snap. I have always hated this part of a new device and BlackBerry has it down to a click or two. Every one I meet wants to try it... and they all say "WOW" I really like this slick little device, 10 out of 10...

  • Reviewed by: hirenghiya

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Good nice handy tiny little phone covering most of the features you expect in cell phone

    Weaknesses: Not find yet

    Overall Evaluation: I have given my daughter a phone as a present as she was looking for a phone which young girls can use. The blackberry ruby seems to be a good phone for young girls and she is so happy to start using this cell phone

  • Reviewed by: roberto1

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Stylish, small size

    Weaknesses: Takes a while to get used to.

    Overall Evaluation: I like how this phone looks like but it is quite difficult to use. It is stylish and thin compared to the older Blackberry models. The qwerty phone keys are hard to use.

  • Reviewed by: newhemidude

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: great call reception, great applications, email on the go, good looks, micro SD slot, play movies, games, music all on the go!

    Weaknesses: battery life could be better

    Overall Evaluation: I've had this phone for 4 months and I'm addicted to it at this point. I have a bunch of movies on it so I'm ready for any plane ride! It has great reception, works great with the bluetooth (Samsung WEP200) I have for it and I can download tons of applications for it. I also have email on the go and the voice dialing works decently. This phone has everything I need and some things I didn't know I needed. I also love the size of the phone. Perfect for your pocket.The only thing that could be better is the battery life. Depending on usage it can last 1 day to 3 days. Not horrible but also not great.I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone!

  • Reviewed by: ash00moo

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: great phone!!! no regrets!

    Weaknesses: none!!!

    Overall Evaluation: I ordered this phone about two weeks ago and although there was a bit of confusion on what type of cell phone i needed such as the carrier, i received my cell phone. Everything was perfect and just the way I needed it. I will definetly be ordering more things from pricegrabber in the future.

  • Reviewed by: chaujoshua

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Nice window with all the usefule application

    Weaknesses: transfer and view picture is too slow

    Overall Evaluation: This product is very good and easy to use. The best feature of this phone is trackball. Camera is good. Also, you can put the microSD in and get more storage for store the picture and video. Overall, it is very good and I would to buy it!

RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 Review

by Liane Cassavoy

- The BlackBerry has long been synonymous with business. Known best as an addictive corporate tool for professionals who need always-on access to e-mail, Research In Motion's device has had something of a staid image compared with today's multimedia-savvy phones.But that's about to change. With the BlackBerry Pearl 8100--the first BlackBerry to offer a camera, an audio player, and a video player--the BlackBerry loosens up and sheds its business-only image. In my tests of a shipping version, I found the makeover mostly successful.

Read Complete Review »

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