The AT&T BlackBerry Pearl 8110 features the new AT&T Navigator program for GPS directions. Is it worth the trip?
Review summary of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8110 (AT&T):
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_it00.jpg) It has been more than a year and a half since the first RIM BlackBerry Pearl launched, the device has changed little, at least visually. The design is still the same, and though we've always appreciated the SureType keyboard and the slim design, the OS needs a serious upgrade, and even the trackball isn't as amusing as it once was. We liked having GPS on a Pearl, but the Verizon Wireless and Sprint BlackBerry Pearls both have navigation, with 3G networking to boot. Still, even though there is little to recommend AT&T's BlackBerry Pearl 8110 over the others, it's still a competent smartphone and not a bad choice, even though there are better choices around. Release: April 2008. Price: $100.
Pros: Slim BlackBerry Pearl, now with GPS. Very good battery life. Navigation software looks better than competitor's.
Cons: Same Pearl, different model number. OS and older apps need visual update. Web browser renders messy pages. Lacks 3G networking.
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Full RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8110 (AT&T) Review:
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Design
AT&T's BlackBerry interface is probably our least favorite among all the versions available. Though the theme doesn't affect the underlying OS, we think that AT&T's faded-looking, pale-blue-on-white icons are the least pretty of the bunch, and the theme doesn't lend itself to legibility. Still, underneath this phone is the same old Pearl. It has the same SureType QWERTY keyboard that only RIM seems to get just right, as well as the iconic trackball. It also sports the recent improvements to the Pearl lineup, including a 3.5mm headphone jack and an externally accessible microSD card slot, both great additions for music fans. Hopefully, when the BlackBerry Bold delivers the updated BlackBerry OS, the Pearl will see more of a visual improvement, but as it stands, even with its aging interface, the Pearl is still an admirably compact smartphone.
Calling - Very good
The BlackBerry Pearl is the weakest phone in RIM's BlackBerry family as far as calling is concerned, but this still places it ahead of many other devices. Call quality hasn't been much improved since we saw the original Pearl more than a year and a half ago. We still had some issues with static during calls, but overall call quality was good. The biggest letdown was with the Pearl's battery life. While the recent versions of the BlackBerry Curve we've tested all brought in more than 8 hours of talk time, the Pearl was good for less than seven hours. This is still admirable, and puts the Pearl among the best performers in its class, but we wish the smaller phone could achieve the same heights as its larger sibling.
Otherwise, the AT&T BlackBerry Pearl 8110 packs speaker-independent voice dialing, which worked very well in our tests. Bluetooth for handsfree is obviously present, and we had little trouble with conference calling. The phone also features a speakerphone that was plenty loud for our indoor and in-car purposes.
Messaging - Good
For messaging, every BlackBerry device has the same basic feature set, and though it's impressive, it still doesn't deliver on everything we like in a messaging phone. The AT&T BlackBerry Pearl 8110 gets only the basics, including BlackBerry Internet and Enterprise e-mail services. These handle plenty of e-mail accounts in a clean, unified mailbox with plenty of messaging options. The Pearl also gets BlackBerry Messenger for IM, which easily lets you chat with other BlackBerry users, but no other IM clients come pre-loaded. That's a disappointment, considering we were so impressed to find AOL, Yahoo and even Gtalk clients pre-loaded on the Sprint version of the BlackBerry Curve 8330. Typing on the Pearl requires some inherent trust in the autocompletion capabilities of the OS, but once again we were impressed not only by how intuitive the SureType system was, but also by how quickly it learned our preferences and usually chose the right word on the second try.
Multimedia - Good
The AT&T BlackBerry Pearl 8110 uses RIM's unified BlackBerry media menu for multimedia features, but these hardly enhance the device. The phone can play back videos and music files of various compressed formats, like MP3 and AAC on the music side, as well as MP4 videos, and we found the simple media player to be easy to use, even for creating new playlists. We definitely like being able to plug in our own headphones, a more significant plus than most manufacturers realize. Still, we would have liked more advanced features. For one, AT&T could have bundled their over-the-air music store and Cellular Video software, though the phone's EDGE networking would make videos prohibitively slow. For another, though the Pearl had no trouble reading a microSD card synchronized to our Windows Media Player library, we would like to see RIM step in and create an intuitive, powerful media transfer suite, like Apple's iPhone has in the iTunes software.
Navigation - Very good
The AT&T BlackBerry Pearl 8110 uses the carrier's own navigation software, a rebranded version of TeleNav's navigation app. AT&T Navigator is a nice looking piece of software, and it worked pretty well in our tests. The GPS sensor wasn't as strong as we found on the larger BlackBerry Curve 8330, so it had more trouble finding us in the concrete canyons of New York City, but once we were on major highways for our commute home, the navigation software had no trouble finding us. To boot, it also looked much better than VZ Navigator, Verizon Wireless' navigation app.
Odds and ends
In addition to these features, the AT&T BlackBerry Pearl 8110 includes the familiar suite of BlackBerry functions. These have not been significantly updated in some time, and though apps like the calendar and address book are quite functional, they could use a serious visual update. Also, the Web browser, which is the same as on other BlackBerry phones, was a disappointment, especially now that we've been using Apple's Safari browser on the iPhone for a year. The Pearl was also the first BlackBerry to feature a built-in camera, but we remain generally unimpressed with the images we got from the device's lens. At 2-megapixels, the images were still too fuzzy to use even on a full screen PC monitor, but looked much better on the device's tiny screen, so at least the camera should work fine for creating new wallpapers.
Price and availability
The RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8110 is available from AT&T Wireless for $150 with a contract. A $50 mail-in rebate is available when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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