Blackberry Pearl 8110, I just couldn’t do it.
Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/15/08 in At&t, Blackberry, RIM
I got myself a silver Blackberry Pearl and popped my AT&T card in it. I planned to take over the world with it. Seriously though, I was going to do a stranger in a strange land experiment with the Pearl. I was going to carry it as my all-in-one for a week or two and blog about my adventures. Well, when I found out all the hassle and money it would cost to get my exchange server working with the Blackberry, I decided that it was not worth it for a couple weeks of this experiment.
Check out the Photo Set for more….
I carried the phone for one full day without another phone. I felt lost without my email. The second day, I carried the Tilt along with the Pearl. That is silly to have to do. The third day, I carried just the Tilt again and haven’t gone back. I just couldn’t do it. Read on for my thoughts on the Pearl after using for a couple days. Also, check out the photo above this paragraph. Notice two Pearls? Why is that?
I’ll start off by saying that the Red Pearl is now my wife’s Pearl. After seeing the silver one I have, she loved it. So, for Mother’s Day, I ran out and got her the red one. If you are keeping score, I gave her a Zune last Mother’s Day. My wife is FAR from being tech savvy, but she likes cute phones with features that she’ll never use, so this one stuck her.
Now for me. I didn’t like it so much. One of the problems I have is that the OS was foreign to me. It’s no problem, a little fumbling and a lot of menu diving and I got used to is. If anyone using a Blackberry complains to me that Windows Mobile has too many menus, I might go off the deep end. The Blackberry Pearl had many, many menus. I loved the device hardware. It was refreshing carrying something so light. Even though the Pearl is small, it feels solid and well built. The style is elegant and the scroll wheen is awesome. There is even a program you can buy to make the scroll wheel light up in other colors too.
The OS isn’t as picture perfect as some claim though. As a user of Windows Mobile phones, there is a slight delay at times when launching a process or application. With the Pearl, I also had some of this. When switching themes, the Pearl was unresponsive for more than 5 seconds. I’m not bashing this, just saying that it’s not as rosy of a picture as some paint.
The main thing for me was the Exchange server issue. I am an extreme case since I have my own, no corporate, exchange service already. For those that use a device in a corporate enviorment, it should be much easier. There are several plans offered through AT&T as well, but for me, it was just going to be more money for all the licencing and such.
Back to the OS though, the choices of themes is refreshing. It allows the user to custiomize their expericnce more and more. The navigation was very easy with the track ball, but the menu button and the menu diving wasn’t much fun. Lots of options, lot’s off power to choose, but not very intuitive.
The Keyboard. Ughhh… Give me qwerty or give me death. That’s all.
As a phone… AWESOME. This thing has WONDERFUL battery life, stellar call quality, and the reception was nice.
Overall, it’s a really nice phone if you are set up to use Blackberry Email and can handle the text entry method. It’s small, stylish, and a real battery life performer. My wife is enjoying using it as “just: a phone” too.
Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under At&t, Blackberry, RIM
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Too bad RIM discontinued their BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express which was introduced last year. It was free and came with 1 CAL for 1 BB handheld.
They did discontinue that, because they replaced it with a easier to use piece of software called ‘BlackBerry Professional Software’. Its been streamlined and is easy to manage, oh ya, its also free and includes 1 CAL.
@James - Thanks for the update. I hadn’t seen that, but then I myself have never had to use either product, but did some research early last year for a sales rep on BESE 4.x.
I have used the pearl for a couple of weeks. I was looking for windows messenger and the like. OS not cool. I am wanting to use windows OS 5 am not sure whether it is possible though.