Verizon Wireless' Pearl has VZ Navigator and 3G networking, but no music store? Is this the Pearl to beat, or just another on the string?
Review summary of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130 (Verizon Wireless):
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_it00.jpg) Is this the best Pearl of the bunch? It certainly is an enticing phone, and RIM has quietly addressed some of the aesthetic issues that bothered us so much in the original. The original phone packed the stodgy BlackBerry OS into a slick, little device. The new Pearl 8130 gives the OS a haircut and a new suit to wear, and it makes the phone much more pleasant to be around. There's still room for improvement. Some advanced multimedia features, like a great music player and some 3G services, would be nice, as would a desktop-grade browser. Still, potential BlackBerry users should think twice about other devices if you haven't taken a look at this Pearl. Release: November 2007. Price: $170.
Pros: A quick Pearl with GPS and fast networking. Interface just a bit prettier. Very good call quality. Nice music options, even without a music store.
Cons: Keyboard still a bit cramped and slick. Interface could use a modern update. Web browser very basic compared to competition.
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Full review of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130 (Verizon Wireless):
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Design - Very good
The Verizon Wireless version of the BlackBerry Pearl differs little, if at all, from the other recent versions of this phone, except that it is available in all-silver. Otherwise, it sports the same wavy, SureType keypad, the same eponymous trackball, and the slim design that this phone brought to the BlackBerry family just over a year ago. The newer Pearls feature a 3.5mm headphone jack, a welcome addition to any phone, as well as a memory card slot that is easier to reach.
We've been critical of the BlackBerry interface for some time, but on this Pearl we're pleased to report that the stodgy, heavily-textual interface has seen a graphical face lift. Not an overhaul, but a few nice colors and boxes have been placed around forms, and the system font has been smoothed out and cleaned up a bit. It is still a BlackBerry, and the top-level menus are unchanged, but once we started digging, we were pleased to find an interface that was much easier to read, and much friendlier to view.
Calling - Very good
We were very impressed with calls made on the BlackBerry Pearl 8130. Calls sounded nice and clean, with no static or reception issues. Callers weren't fooled into thinking we were on a landline, but this is top-notch for cellular phone quality. Reception could have been better; we generally saw about 2-3 bars in our lower Manhattan offices, but this didn't seem to affect calls, as we never lost a connection.
RIM's BlackBerry address book is very good, with live searching that makes fine use of the SureType keys to predict input. For instance, when we typed "Phi," the phone found this editor's name, but also our contacts at Ogilvy because the keys also correspond to the letters "Ogi." Happily, RIM has finally updated the look of the address book, and most of the PIM software. While we don't see a significant feature boost, the look is much more clean and colorful, easier to read and much more pleasant to use.
The Pearl 8130 includes all of our favorite calling options. A dedicated button on the side activates speaker-independent voice dialing. While this was a bit too easy to activate accidentally, it worked very well, and made almost no mistakes in our tests. Connecting a conference call was easy and intuitive, though we would have liked the phone's screen to give us more info about our three calls, as it didn't even let us know we were all joined together. Bluetooth worked fine for handsfree calling, and the speakerphone was adequately loud for use in a moving car.
Messaging - Good
In some ways the BlackBerry Pearl is a great messaging phone, but in other ways it stumbles, or simply doesn't show up for the party. In terms of push e-mail, if your company is using a BlackBerry server, you're in luck, because RIM's push is fast and responsive. It lacks the HTML e-mail that we're seeing on the iPhone and Windows Mobile 6 phones, but the phone can handle up to 10 e-mail accounts at once, which is impressive. Unfortunately, some of those e-mail accounts might require the desktop redirector software, which basically just forwards your mail to your phone. We always find such software obtrusive, and a step beneath a direct connection to an e-mail server.
The Pearl includes SMS messaging, but not instant messaging, unless you want to chat with another BlackBerry owner. BlackBerry messenger is the only IM client available. Third party clients can be purchased for the BlackBerry OS, but Verizon Wireless really should have packed in an IM client for such a consumer-oriented smartphone.
Typing on the Pearl's keys was fine. We think that the new wavy design feels more solid than the older, first-generation Pearl keypad, whose keys felt like they were about to fall off. Still, users used to the larger, discrete QWERTY keys on the BlackBerry Curve or 8800 series might have trouble with the tightly packed, slick SureType keyboard. We don't fault the SureType layout. We like the design, and we found the Pearl's intuition to be impressive, especially its ability to learn which word choices we preferred.
Multimedia - Good
Verizon Wireless hasn't bundled their V Cast multimedia options with the Pearl 8130, even though Sprint is attaching their music store to the same device on their network. Still, we don't think the Pearl is losing much. The device has an updated media screen from RIM, and some nice multimedia features built in. First of all, it takes microSDHC cards up to 8GB, and had no trouble reading the hundreds of tracks off our card. The Pearl also features a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, always a pleasure to find, or you can connect to a stereo Bluetooth headset, as we did with no trouble.
Scheduling and productivity - Very good
The calendar app on the BlackBerry is top notch, second only, perhaps, to Microsoft's own mobile Outlook calendar when paired with the desktop app. We miss being able to invte attendees to events, but it was the only major feature we were missing. Otherwise, the calendar benefits from a visual upgrade similar to what we found in the address book. Fonts are smoothed out, and some nice colored boxes outline and organize choices, rather than confronting the user with long lists of ugly, jagged type. There isn't a real feature bump, but the visual improvements make the calendar much nicer to use.
For productivity, you can view Office documents, but you can't edit them. We checked out a large Excel spreadsheet, and the phone was able to browse and search, but any additions were out of the question. With it's full keyboard, it would have been nice to do some basic editing, but advanced users will probably want a larger, QWERTY device anyway.
Camera - Good
The camera on the BlackBerry Pearl has seen a slight upgrade to a 2-megapixel sensor. The lens quality was not very good, but passable. Images were noisy with blurry edges, but colors weren't exaggerated, and details were available, if not clear. Photo management on the BlackBerry isn't pretty, but there are plenty of options to send your photo via Bluetooth, e-mail or SMS.
Web browsing - Good
The Web browser on the BlackBerry Pearl now falls into the older generation of mobile browsers, apps that don't try to approximate a desktop experience, but renders a usable page on the mobile screen nonetheless. Layout on our homepage was messy in the single-column view, but images came through okay. On Verizon Wireless' speedy EV-DO network, pages loaded quickly. Also, we were impressed with the phone's intuitive SureType features, even entering URLs. This phone marked the first time an intuitive typing function managed to help us type our full Web address, instead of suggesting nonsense.
Navigating pages with the trackball seems to be a bit easier this time around. The browser seemed to accelerate when we flicked the ball relentlessly faster. We also liked having the option to toggle the trackball's function between a cursor arrow and straight scrolling. We still think that a responsive touchscreen is easier to use, but RIM has improved the browsing experience just enough to be more enjoyable.
Navigation - Very good
The BlackBerry Pearl 8130 features GPS navigation, and Verizon Wireless makes their own VZ Navigator available for the device. VZ Navigator worked fairly well. It found us quickly, even in our cubicles, which don't have a direct view of the sky. VZ Navigator does a poor job of recalculating directions when you fall off the proscribed path, and it's interface is starting to look a bit long in the tooth. Still, it loaded our initial route quickly, and its route suggestions were usually good. RIM also includes the BlackBerry Maps program. Maps links to address on the phone, so that you can quickly navigate to an address on a Web page or in your address book, using the maps program. It lacks the advanced navigation features, like spoken, turn-by-turn directions, of VZ Navigator, though.
Price and availability
The RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130 is available now from Verizon Wireless for $170 with a contract agreement and an instant online discount of $100. A mail-in rebate of $70 is available, when signing up for a qualifying data and voice plan.
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