I finally had to buy a new phone when my old Motorola stopped working. Initially, I was just going to buy a very basic phone but after a friend showed me her new Blackberry Pearl, I decided I "needed" this phone.

This is my first Blackberry device, but I can already see how it has been nicknamed the "crackberry". It is addicting how convenient it is to have everything at your fingertips. First the good points:

Size
This phone is amazingly small, even smaller than my old Sony-Ericsson T69, which I thought was tiny. It's a fairly thin candy-bar shaped phone and can easily slip into a pocket without a huge bulge or a purse without taking up a lot of space.

Ergonomics
Someone at RIM did their homework. Older Blackberries and other PIM devices use the little rotary dial on the side or the typical compass dial pad on the front, but this device is slick. It uses a miniature lighted trackball that use very intuitive to use and fairly accurate to position. Many other input interfaces are sometimes difficult to accurately select a specific item on the screen, but this one is almost as good as your desktop mouse. The other necessary buttons are well-placed where you would expect them to be.

Phone
Unlike some PIM devices and older Blackberries, the phone in the Pearl isn't an afterthought. The reception is excellent; even though I live in 1-bar location I can usually make and take phone calls without problems. The quad-band GSM capabilities make it easy to use overseas unlike CDMA phones. The sound quality is very good and adjusts loud enough to easily overcome noisy environments and the speakerphone is better than I expected. The microphone seems to pick up my voice just fine without being drowned out by background sounds.

Screen
The 2.5" 260x240 65K color screen is a pleasure to use. Even the smallest fonts are sharp and easy to see. There's enough colors available to view photos without much color banding on gradations. And the screen brightness automatically adjusts to the ambient light level (although this can sometimes be annoying given only two brightness levels).

Keyboard Input
The keyboard combines two or three different keys into one. So just how does it know which key you intended to press? A predictive technology called SureType. The SureType keyboard does a great job anticipating what you are trying to type. About 95% of the time, I simply type and it guesses right. Other times, all I need to do is scroll the trackball to the correct word in the list that appears on-screen. With practice, you can type fairly quickly and accurately. Tip: make sure you checkout the keyboard shortcuts. They're real time-savers.

Voice Recognition
Most voice recognition on phones are gimicky at best. Few can accurately interpret your speech without first training it or speaking the name or phrase in your own voice. The Voice Activated Dialing (VAD) on the Pearl will recognized speech right out of the box and it's surprisingly accurate. And the interface makes it easy to choose the correct action when the phone has trouble choosing. When combined with a bluetooth headset, it makes for easy hands-free dialing.

Easy customization
From ringtones to themes to the buttons on the sides, most things on this phone can be customized for your own preferences. Although few themes are currently available, you can completely alter the look and feel of the phone simply by changing themes. Can't see the words? Change the font size to something easier to read. Want to be reminded of your trip to the Bahamas? Use that picture of the beach as your background. You can program different ringtones and alerts for different email accounts and even different callers. Even change the function of the buttons on the side so you can activate any phone function with just one touch.

Battery Life
Most phones like this don't have much of a battery life if you actually use it a lot. Download a bunch of internet content and use the phone throughout the day and most phones would be dead within 5 hours. I've gone for nearly 3 days of heavy use before needing to recharge. And recharging is fairly quick. To top off the phone from about 50% takes less than an hour. A full charge takes less than 3 hours.

Cost
Keep a sharp eye out for deals. Although this is a relatively new phone, there are occasional deal to be had. Most carriers will charge about $200 for this phone if you sign up for two years of service. But with some savvy shopping and rebates, I found this phone for $49 through T-Mobile. Not bad for a Blackberry.

Okay, now the things that could stand improvement:

Size
Yeah, the size was a good thing, but only if you have small fingers like me. The keyboard is so small that it's easy for even my small fingers to miskey or hit multiple keys. Made even more difficult because the middle keys have a strange curved shape that is difficult to get used to. The small size makes picture-taking difficult and shakey. Which leads to the next needed improvement.

Camera
It's only 1.3 megapixel! They could easily have put a higher resolution camera in this phone but opted for the bare minimum. The digital zoom feature only increments from 1X to 3X to 5X, skipping 2X and 4X along the way. 1X is too wide and 3X is too cropped. And the little LED flash is just about useless unless it's pitch black.

Initial Setup and Activation
Despite the nice little initial setup poster that came with the phone, it took the better part of a week to get everything working properly. Depending on your provider, many features of the phone can't be setup on the phone itself, but must be activated through a website or via customer service. Trying to determine the right plan for your service is also confusing. You'll definitely want an unlimited internet plan with this phone, and you may want to add unlimited messaging to your plan. I wasn't aware that using MSN Instant Messenger on this device actually generates an SMS Text message which is counted separately from your internet usage. Something I discovered $34 later.

Computer Integration
It barely works with my Mac and is rather limited on the PC. The software for the PC can connect to many types of PIMs but doesn't seem to translate the contact fields and calendar fields properly. On the Mac, you'll need to download a separate program to properly sync. The software doesn't allow direct access to configuration files or theme files, but you can exchange photos, ringtones and MP3 files.

Network Speed
Although 3G networks are widely available Europe and Asia, service in the U.S. is limited. The Pearl is not a 3G phone and can't take advantage of the broadband download speeds that 3G offers along with some of the exclusive content such as steaming video. Since it uses the older EDGE network, downloads are limited to 56K modem speeds. Fine for most mobile apps, but for sending and receiving photos or videos, it's pathetically slow. But in its defense, adding this capability would probably increase the size and bulk of this device.

Maps
This feature would be nice if they had implemented it correctly. Since the phone can wireless link with a GPS device, it can provide some location-based services depending on your provider. Without a GPS unit, it can still display maps but doesn't even triangulate your location based on the nearest cell tower. Lame. You need to enter the address or select one from your phonebook; but if it's in your phonebook, chances are you don't need a map to it.

Finally, a plug for T-Mobile. I worked at AT&T Wireless (now Cingular) and used their service for nearly 12 years and despite having poor coverage at my home, I switched to T-Mobile with I bought this phone. They offer unlimited Blackberry internet access for only $20 when added to a voice plan. Their customer service reps are U.S.-based and are friendly and knowledgeable. Their web-site is easy to use to manage your account.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 49