A Mac User Perspective - A Review of the BlackBerry Pearl from Verizon Wireless
The BlackBerry Pearl has just been released for Verizon Wireless. I know I’m not alone when I exclaim “Hooooray!” I received my phone on 11/7, after five days of using and playing with the phone I feel competent enough to write a review.
First, let me give you a background on where I’m coming from. I’m a Mac user since March 2007 and I’ve been a Palm user since 1999. As far as Palm’s go I’ve had the Handspring Visor, Handspring Visor Edge, Palm m500, the Palm m515 and the Palm Treo 650. This has been a long way of telling you that, in the past, I’ve been a heavy Palm OS user and this is my first BlackBerry.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Treo 650, let me give you a brief history. It’s a brick (-), its battery weighs more than my Pearl. It has a QWERTY keyboard (+). It has a touch screen (+). It has a large screen (+). It does email (+) but not very well (-).
Right out of the box the Pearl started to impress me. The size of it is simply amazing! It fits comfortably inside the palm of my hand and my thumb easily reaches the trackball. And, as I mentioned earlier, it weighs less than the battery of my old Treo 650.
The phone is also very stylish. The pictures I’ve seen on the internet do not give it justice. If you’re interested, go to the Verizon store and see it for yourself.
As far as the phone goes, I was a little apprehensive of even ordering it. The lack of a touch screen and a QWERTY keyboard really worried me.
On my Treo I could type amazingly fast, my fingers flew over the keyboard like a pianist’s fingers do over piano keys. On the other hand, the Pearl does not have a QWERTY keyboard. Instead it has two letters per key. In order to make typing easier the phone uses something called SureType. In short SureType is a Predicitive Text application that guesses the word you are typing based on the keys pressed.
In the past I’ve used T9 (another predictive text application) and quickly turned it off in favor of tapping each key in order to get the letter I wanted. So far I haven’t turned off SureType as it works rather well. One of the first things I did was type up an email with some of the words that most people don’t use - a co-worker’s last name, “Java,” “Lodgenet,” and some other things. It was able to guess all of them. But I found one problem - me. I worked against the application. In order for SureType to guess what you want, you have to type. I would type three letters, see that it was being displayed wrong so I would try to fix it. Instead, keep typing. Most of the time it will guess what you’re looking for.
If you’re a Mac user, beware of software installation. In the Palm world you would download a PRC file and tell the HotSync Manager to install it next time the Palm was synced. In Windows land this paradigm applies with BlackBerry as well. Unfortunately for us Mac OS users this simply isn’t possible - neither PocketMac nor Missing Sync support it. This is a major buzzkill for me. Thankfully OTA installations work but this is a major hassle.
As far as other Mac-centric things - I can’t find anything wrong. The Pearl integrates well with iCal, Address, etc.
BlackBerry has long been known as an email device. The Pearl is no different, it falls in-line with all of the other crackberries that have been released.
In order to get my email up and running, all I had to do was login into BlackBerry’s Verizon-Branded website, give them some information regarding my accounts and off it went. Within five minutes personal and consulting email (both hosted by Google) was being pushed to my phone. I didn’t have to enter in any technical information - just my username and password.
All in all the Pearl has been a rock solid device. I love using it, I love carrying it and I have love/hate relationship with instant access to my email.
Do you love or hate my post? Are you thinking about the Pearl and have questions? Do you have the Pearl and need to vent? Would you like to tell others how much you like your Pearl? Leave a comment!
The BlackBerry Pearl 8130 is available from Verizon Wireless for $199 after two-year contract and on-line discount.
Sunday, November 11th, 2007