The BlackBerry® Pearl™ 3G

Vincent Hofmann on Sun, 2010-11-07 21:58 in

Mobile Technology

Rating

3/5

Research in Motion was kind enough to give me a BlackBerry Pearl 3G to test for two weeks. The BlackBerry Pearl is the perfect no-fuss, fancy-feature-free, always online handset. It's just not for me.

The BlackBerry Pearl is a slight departure from BlackBerry's business person positioning, it's sleek and a lot lighter than the Curve and Bold series. This might be a handset which a teenager might love; replaceable, cheap to stay in touch with friends with and able to play most media types via a relatively simple media app.

BlackBerry's OS 5, currently on the unit I have, is quick, easy to navigate and to my surprise very functional. I had to hold back my initial skepticism as an iPhone and Galaxy S user when I first viewed the user interface, but once I got stuck in I was up and running, apps downloaded and podcasts transferred in a matter of minutes. I have to say though, I missed my touch screen, large display and in the Galaxy S's case the Super AMOLED screen - the BlackBerry Pearl 3G is not the handset for you if you're a video fan or a fan of browsing the web at length, or at all.

Browsing the web, has never been BlackBerry's strong point, its BlackBerry OS browser cannot play video (HTML 5 and Flash Video are both unavailable even on its Torch models) and it doesn't render any javascript so forget viewing any site with AJAX or Javascript based tab navigation, let alone sites which are text heavy as the browser cannot detect text-columns and snap to them like the iPhone and Galaxy S models. But the Pearl 3G shouldn't be compared to Apple's devices as it'd be like comparing Apples with ... you know what I mean. The BlackBerry Pearl's strongpoint, like the broader BlackBerry range, is its patented BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Messaging - this internet on demand makes it the device I reach for by default to connect with friends in the car and the device which makes it OK to leave the office but stay totally in touch with my colleagues. The push notifications are just THAT damn good, and beat the pants off of the iPhone 4's lousy 15 minute push cycles.

If I had to sum my experience up with the BlackBerry Pearl 3G, I'd say it's a love hate relationship. I hate that I pick it up more often than my infinitely more sexy iPhone 3G, and I love that it made me want an iPhone 4 for it even more - because I need web browsing, mobile video and mind numbing apps unfortunately just as much as I do continuous push notifications.

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G - sidekick to the smartphone stars!