BlackBerry Pearl 8100 review

Bonnie Cha CNET

Published: 12 Sep 2006

The BlackBerry Pearl wasn't exactly a hidden gem. Specs and images of the Pearl (a.k.a. the 8100, a.k.a. the Stealth) leaked onto the Web about a month ago, and Research in Motion certainly made no secret that it planned to release devices with integrated multimedia capabilities, although it never named a specific product or release date. However, RIM has now officially introduced the BlackBerry Pearl, the first BlackBerry to offer a built-in camera, video and music playback and expandable media.

We certainly welcome these additions, but the Pearl isn't offering anything revolutionary; most smart phones today have the same capabilities and offer more functionality, such as video recording. That said, we think the Pearl's sleek form factor and new features, coupled with the BlackBerry's well-known email capabilities, will be a draw for business users and consumers alike.

The price is also right at free to £119.99 depending on price plans to be announced from T-Mobile, who provided the network for the US test models. The phone is also due from O2, who provided the connectivity for the UK test devices.

Design

We don't think we're going too far when we say that the BlackBerry Pearl is the sexiest BlackBerry to date -- it even gives the Motorola Q (not yet available in the UK) some stiff competition. It sports a super-sleek form factor (50mm x 107mm x 14.5mm; 89g) and a polished look with its glossy black-and-chrome finish. Its more mobile-phone-like appearance will go a long way toward attracting a broader audience rather than just business users. Also, with its slimmed-down profile, we had no problems slipping it into a handbag or trouser pocket, and it felt solid and comfortable to hold up to the ear for phone calls.

The BlackBerry Pearl has a 2.25in., 16-bit colour TFT screen with a resolution of 240 by 260 pixels. Like the rest of the company's devices, it's not a touch screen, but it offers a sharp, clear display with vibrant colours and is great for viewing email, images and Web sites. It also features light-sensing technology, so it will automatically adjust the screen and keyboard depending on your environment; true enough, it adjusted the display's light so that we could still read it in direct sunlight. You can change the screen's theme, backlight time, and font size, style and family. A small LED above the screen illuminates different colours for different status messages: green for wireless, blue for Bluetooth, red for new messages, and amber for low battery. There's also a mute button on top of the device.

Just below the screen, you'll find the reason why RIM decided to name this BlackBerry after a gemstone: the pearl-like trackball. It's reminiscent of the one found on the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 and allows for four-way scrolling; pressing it down acts as a select button (you can adjust the trackball's sensitivity under the Options, Screen/keyboard menu if you need to change its responsiveness). The trackball, along with the Menu and Escape buttons that surround it, replace the trackwheel and Escape key that have been mainstays of BlackBerrys past. Having grown accustomed to these controls, we missed having these buttons on the right side for easy one-handed use, and we suspect other BlackBerry users might feel the same way. It's not that the new setup doesn't allow for one-handed operation; it's just different and takes some getting used to.

With the jog dial and Escape key relocated, you'll now find volume up/down buttons and a customisable convenience key on the right spine, while a 2.5mm headset jack, a mini USB port and another user-defined shortcut key are on the left side. By default, the right shortcut key was assigned to be the camera activation button, and we found that to be quite convenient, especially if you want to take a horizontal picture, as it mimics the feel of a standalone digital camera. The Pearl's camera lens is located on the back along with a flash and a small self-portrait mirror.

We've never been big fans of the SureType keyboard, and we're still not. For the uninitiated, this modified keyboard features a traditional QWERTY layout, but two letters are assigned to one key. As you start to enter the letters of a word, SureType technology will present you with a list of possible letter combinations or words based on context. Great in theory, but we've found that it can be slow and frustrating because you have to type the letters, scroll to the correct word, and then select it. That said, we understand that some concessions have to be made in order to keep a handset like this small, so we're willing to give RIM the beneift of the doubt here.

We're a little less forgiving, however, about the fact that the microSD card slot is located behind the battery. It's a pain to have to take the battery out every time you want to access it -- even Nokia, which has been notorious for this design quirk, has found a way to make it so that at least you don't have to remove the whole battery, just the cover. Given that this is the first BlackBerry to even offer an expansion slot, you may be thinking we're nitpicking at this point, but it's still an inconvenience.

Finally, RIM packages the device with a travel charger, a pair of earbuds, a USB cable and a desktop companion software CD. There's no belt holster included with the Pearl, but RIM said this is because it's such a slim device that it doesn't warrant one, and we agree. There are, however, belt clips and cases for purchase.

Features

The BlackBerry Pearl 8100 has generated so much buzz because it represents several firsts for RIM. As we mentioned above, the Pearl is the first BlackBerry to offer expandable media, but it's also the first to have a camera and an integrated media player. Although revolutionary for the product line, these new multimedia features are pretty basic compared to those of other smartphones on the market. Still, we'll take it over nothing, and we certainly think it's a step in the right direction and a sign of good things to come from BlackBerry.

The BlackBerry Pearl has a 1.3-megapixel camera with a flash and 5x zoom; however, it doesn't have video recording capabilities like most camera-equipped smartphones and mobiles. You also don't get as many of the customisation options, but you can choose from three picture sizes (1,280x1,024, 640x480 and 320x240) and three quality settings (normal, fine and superfine). You can also adjust the white balance setting depending on your environment. Once you're done taking photos, you can save them to your device's internal memory or to the media card, or set them as caller ID or as your home screen. You have several options for sharing your images with family and friends: email, a multimedia message or an instant message. There's also a slideshow feature, but there was an annoying 'Loading...' message between each picture.

We were a little disappointed by the quality of the Pearl's camera. We could recognise the objects in the photos, but colours were washed out, and there was an overall grainy effect to the picture. Still, these camera phones were never designed to replace your digital camera, so for the quick snapshot, the Pearl is OK.

You can't record video, but you can watch video with the integrated media player. It supports various video formats, including AVI, MP4, MOV and 3GP files. The player has play and stop buttons, and you can fast-forward and rewind clips by clicking the trackball and scrolling right or left. We just wish there were a full-screen mode since these player controls take up the lower quarter of the screen.

For music, the BlackBerry Pearl supports MP3, AAC, MIDI and WAV files, among others. You can create playlists as folders and shuffle and repeat songs within a certain folder. It also displays some track information, such as title, artist and album art if available. As we were trying out the music player, we quickly found that external player controls would have been nice. Instead, we had to press the Menu key first if we wanted to skip a track or go back to the previous song. However, we do like the fact that you can easily set a song as your ring tone simply by pressing the Menu key and selecting 'Set as phone tune' from the list. You can also continue to play music as you use the device's other applications; and if you happen to get an incoming call, the Pearl will pause the music and pick up where you left off after you hang up.

Other than these new capabilities, the BlackBerry Pearl retains many of the same features that have made BlackBerrys popular, such as email. The smartphone can sync with your company's BlackBerry Enterprise server with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino or Novell GroupWise to deliver corporate email in real time. It also supports up to 10 personal/business POP3 or IMAP4 email accounts. There's a setup wizard onboard to help with this process, and we used it to get our AT&T Yahoo account set up on the device. It was quick and easy, and we were soon receiving messages on the Pearl, sometimes even before they had showed up in our in-box on the computer. Other messaging options include text and multimedia messages, and we're glad to see the inclusion of popular instant-messaging clients, such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN and ICQ.

For mobile professionals, an attachment viewer opens popular file formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Corel WordPerfect, PDF, JPEG, GIF and more. You can also view tracked changes and embedded images and zoom and rotate documents, but you can't edit documents out of the box, although third-party software is available that allows this functionality. Other applications on the Pearl include a calendar, a Web browser, a tasks list, a memo pad, an alarm, a password keeper and a calculator.

As a phone, the address book is limited only by the available memory, which tops out at 64MB flash memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts). For each entry, you can store up to eight numbers, work and home addresses, email and Web addresses, company information and notes. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo to a contact as well as a group category, business or personal. The BlackBerry Pearl now supports voice dialling, so you can use voice commands to call up contacts and dial numbers. In addition, Bluetooth 2.0 is onboard for wireless headsets, car kits and desktop connectivity. RIM has said it plans to add Wi-Fi to future devices, but the Pearl does not have integrated Wi-Fi.

Performance

We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) RIM BlackBerry Pearl in San Francisco using T-Mobile service, and call quality wasn't quite up to scratch. On our end, callers sounded a bit muffled, while our friends said that although they could hear us clearly, our voice sounded a bit digitised. We could still carry on a conversation, but it just wasn't the same crystal-clear quality we've experienced with other BlackBerrys, such as the BlackBerry 7130c. Activating the speakerphone didn't help matters either. There was an echo on both ends of the conversation, although volume was adequate. On the upside, we had no problems pairing the Pearl with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset.

Music playback was OK. The Pearl's speakers weren't the best for listening to songs, as it produced some background hiss when we cranked up the volume. Plugging in the included earbuds helped the situation a bit. Also, be aware that the headset jack doesn't accept Walkman-style headphones. We were blown away by the video performance of the Pearl. We watched a number of clips and never got that pixelated, blurry effect that often plagues the video performance on mobile devices. Overall, the device was pretty responsive. We didn't experience too much lag time when launching programs or switching between applications. We did notice, however, that the Pearl didn't have sufficient memory to activate the camera while we still had the video player open.

The BlackBerry Pearl is rated for 3.5 hours of talk time and up to 15 days of standby time. In our tests, we were able to get 5.8 hours of talk time. RIM also says the Pearl's battery can last up to 21 hours with just music playback and 6 hours for video playback.

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