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Blackberry Pearl 8100 handheld: Review
Style matches substance in the Blackberry Pearl
BY OUR TECH EDITOR
7 March 2007: Blackberry 8100 Pearl
smartphone is proof that wondefrul things do come
in small packages. Weighing merely 3.1 ounces, the
Pearl packs enormous punch for a gadget of its
size. Welcome to the new Blackberry Pearl, the
no-nonsense smartphone from Research In Motion,
(RIM) brought to life in India by Airtel and
Hutch.
 For
starters, Blackberry is more of an email device
than a cellphone. So, if you have little to do
with the Internet or email, this is not the
product for you. If swanky looks, multimedia and
mobile connectivity are all you need, you can get
better ones for far less price, the ones flaunted
by the frivolous John Abrahams and Rakhi Sawants
in suburban trains. If you think you are a class
apart, like me, go for the Blackberry Pearl.
The Blackberry popularised concept of bringing the
email to your palmtop. Resembling bricks more than
mobiles, the earlier Blackberrys were heavy and
downright ugly, and put off many potential buyers.
There were few takers for the early Blackberry
models among non-business users. The Pearl is a
valiant foray into that savannah currently
populated by carnivores like Nokia and Motorola.
Let us get to the basics first. The Blackberry
Pearl is a smartphone, and calls itself - rather
snootily - a "handheld" rather than a
run-of-the-mill mobile phone. Before I bought my
Pearl, I was rather sceptical about the
Blackberry's email and internet functions. (My
paranoia with email configuration had started with
my pathetic experience in trying to set up
Microsoft Outlook to receive my mail. I failed).
Whereas Outlook - and many similar mail programs -
spook you with a diarrhea of acronyms -- POP,
SMTP, HTTP, XML -- Blackberry spares you all that
trouble. Configuring my Blackberry to receive my
mail was a breeze. All I had to do with was to ask
Airtel to activate Blackberry services on my
Blackberry Pearl.
Once the Blackberry service is activated on the
Blackberry, the 'edge' icon on the Pearl screen
changes to EDGE. This means the GPRS data
connection is on, ready to receive and send mails,
chat, SMS, MMS etc.
How to receive and send mails with the Blackberry?
OK. After edge turns to EDGE, you need to open an
account on the Blackberry website. Go to
http://airtel.blackberry.com , and fill in
some basic stuff, including the PIN and IMEI
numbers of your Blackberry Pearl. Nothing scary
about these numbers - they are written on the back
of the Blackberry Pearl's battery. If you can't
find them there, go to options>status on the
Blackberry screen. You will see both numbers
there.
Once the account submitted, you get an email
account like dancewithshadows@airtel.blackberry.com.
To configure email accounts, log into
http://airtel.blackberry.com on your
computer. Enter the username and password of your
email IDs and click submit. Immediately, you get
an alert on your Blackberry saying the account has
been configured. Believe me, it brings a smile to
your face.
Airtel tells me that I can configure a maximum of
nine email IDs on the Blackberry Pearl. So far, I
have configured my official email ID, along with
the GMail and Hotmail IDs. The set-up process, for
all these IDs, was surprisingly smooth.
Once the email ID is configured, an icon for the
ID automatically appears on your Blackberry
screen. The more the accounts, the more the icons.
Once you receive a mail, a notifier chimes, and a
light blinks. No gory ringtones here. Roll the
Blackberry trackball to the icon and press. You've
got mail! You can use regular email functions like
forward, reply, delete etc. If you choose to
delete, Blackberry Pearl asks you if you want to
delete the mail from the handheld or from the mail
inbox too. Quite thoughful.
However, unlike the mailbox on the browser or
Outlook, you don't have the luxury of having
multiple folders in Blackberry. Once you delete,
you can't go to the trash can and retrieve from
there. However, you can still use the mailbox
trashcan, just in case you deleted it
unintentionally. Apart from regular text-based
email, Blackberry Pearl can also open DOC, PDF and
spreadsheet files.
The mail services on my Blackberry pearl worked to
my near-complete satisfaction. Why near-complete?
Reason is, Blackberry services, as I said early,
requires GPRS EDGE service. In my case, Airtel
provides the service. Sometimes, Blackberry
services go down and EDGE changes to edge, and you
may not notice it. This means the data connection
is no longer active, though you may still be
making and receiving phone calls. If a mail lands
up in your mailbox when the EDGE service is down,
you get it only after the service is up again. The
EDGE service occasionaly snaps, though Airtel
tries to quickly restore it. Once I got an Airtel
SMS that the service is down and under maintenance
for sometime. But several times I have noticed
that the data connection dies and comes back to
life in a short while without any information from
Airtel.
It is important to note that I have used the
Blackberry EDGE service only on Airtel. In India,
Hutch too provides Blackberry services, though
Airtel was the first to bring Blackberry here. I
am still to check out the EDGE service on Hutch. I
hope it is fault-free.
However, the Blackberry browser has been a
complete let-down for me. I have been disgusted
enough with the piddly, scaled-down browser on my
Motorazr before I decided enough is enough and
blew up my savings on the Blackberry Pearl
smartphone. However, the browser is a major
let-down. The Blackberry Pearl browser is no
competition to the full-fledged browser on the
Palm Treo 650 or the iPhone. I hope RIM will load
a better browser into the future models and not
tie me down to this excuse-of-a-browser. Come on,
if I shell out Rs 25,000 for a Blackberry Pearl I
guess deserve to have a full-fledged browser like
the preloaded Safari in iPhone.
The Blackberry Pearl also comes packed with icons
of Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger. Download and
installation are easy and intuitive. The
applications download fast and start up quickly. I
honestly believe that the Google Talk in my
Blackberry Pearl loads faster than the chat window
in my Gmail inbox on my PC. Unfortunately, there
is no MSN Messenger available. There are several
software manufacturers peddling their MSN-like IM
software on the Web promising compatibility with
MSN. If you feel confident enough, feel free to
download them and use. However, we can't guarantee
that all of them are virus and spyware-free.
Despite its marked tilt towards email
functionalities, the Blackberry still has
sufficient firepower in the mobile phone
department. It has all the functions of the
Railway Romeo's mobile phone and much more.
Address book, phone logs, SMS, MMS, Bluetooth etc
work without a hitch. One advantage of taking the
Blackberry services is that you dont need to apply
separately for MMS, Net On Phone etc. You got
Blackberry services, you got it all.
The Blackberry Pearl has a 1.3 megapixel camera
with built-in flash. The camera is far better than
my age-old Motorazr, though that is not saying
much. No kidding, the camera and screen of the
Blackberry Pearl are above par and the pictures
quite sharp. Yes, there is a 5X digital zoom too.
The flash did not impress me much, but I have no
complaints on that count. Once you click a
picture, a menu pops up below the picture for
quick editing, emailing, saving or MMSing. Very
useful. There is also an expandable micro SD
memory card slot, if you need to store more
pictures. The organiser functions too are
impressive - with a calendar, memo pad, tasks
list, calculator etc.
Something that will discourage the Railway Rakhis
is the absence of a video function. It does not
have an FM radio either. The Blackberry Pearl
smartphone can play movie and music files of
several formats downloaded from a PC, but cannot
record video. Blackberry Pearl has customisable
keys, which often make you feel that you are
handling a mini-computer rather than a mobile
phone.
The voice quality was exemplary, in both the
handset and the headphone. Allow me to be
shameless enough to say that the stereophonic
headphones of Blackberry offered the best voice
quality I have come across since my iPod.
Unlike regular mobile phones, Blackberry has
always offered QWERTY keypads, just the same as in
ordinary computer keyboards. This meant that the
keyboard was bulkier, ending up wth brick-sized
Blackberrys which one had to lug from room to
room. With Blackberry Pearl, RIM has broken that
barrier - yes, the QWERTY keypad lives, but in a
different format. Instead of one letter-one key,
it is two letters-one key. This means a small
compromise in user-friendliness, but I guess that
is the price one has to pay for the extra style.
The trackball 'pearl' is very user-friendly - one
of those things which make you feel
Why-didn't-they-think-of-it-before. When I applied
for the Blackberry services, the rental was around
Rs 1,000. Since then, Airtel has reduced it to Rs
245.
A Blackberry Pearl is recommended if you are in
need of constantly keeping in touch across email
and chat. This is not an entertainment-oriented
phone; so, don't look here for exemplary movie &
music capabilities, FM radio and large storage
space. It is assumed that a Blackberry user has
more important things to do in life than shooting
MMS clips in shady classrooms. Though the
Blackberry Pearl turns heads in the style
department, it is actually in the engine room of
functionality that the Pearl wins hands down.
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Blackberry
Pearl Smartphone Features |
| Camera
Media Player
Corporate Data Access 1
Wireless Email
Organizer
Wireless Calendar 1
Phone
SMS
MMS
Wireless Internet
Size and Weight
4.2" (Length )
1.97" (Width )
.57" (Depth )
Approximately 3.1 oz (Weight )
Data Input/Navigation
Trackball
SureType� QWERTY-style keyboard with SureType
software (Keyboard )
Keyboard backlighting
Voice Input/Output
Headset jack
Integrated earpiece/ microphone
Built-in Speakerphone
Headset, hands-free and serial port profiles
supported (Bluetooth� technology )
Display
Font size (user selectable)
Color display
Backlighting
Light sensing screen
Notification
Polyphonic ringtones
Vibrate Mode
LED indicator
MP3 ringtones
Battery
Removable/rechargeable Lithium (C-S2)
Approximate Battery Life
15 days standby time (Standby Time )
3.5 hrs talk time (Talk Time 2 )
Memory
64 MB (Flash Memory )
Modem
RIM wireless modem
Email Integrations
Works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for
Microsoft Exchange
Integrates with existing business email
account
Integrates with existing personal email
account
Integrates with optional new device account
Includes desktop software
Works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for
IBM Lotus Domino
Works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for
Novell GroupWise 3
Accessories Included
USB cable
Wall Charger
Device Security
Password Protection and Keyboard Lock
Support for Triple DES or AES Encryption when
Integrated with BlackBerry Enterprise Server
Pending Approval (FIPS Validation )
Optional Support for S/MIME |
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