chinafrog's Full Review: RIM BlackBerry 8100 Smartphone
I am not a real gadget geek. I was not in a real hurry to get a new cell phone. In fact, I had my nokia 8290 for the past 7 years , it still works great. But I wanted to get a new phone and give the old one to my dad who kept bugging me to get a new cell just for that reason.
What was I looking for ?
I have T-mobile, again the same cell phone company I have had for 7 years. They were originally Voicestream. I am so happy with Tmobile that I recommend all of coworkers and friends to join. I can write about tmobile later. But for now let's focus on the phone. I wanted to pick a phone that I could use with t-mobile so that limited my options.
I also hate flip phones and slider phones. I just don't like their styles at all. I was looking for a phone that was similar in size to my Nokia 8290, which is a really teeny- tiny-cutie phone!
My friend bought her Pearl when it came out in April of last year and was showing it off to me. I thought to myself this is a really great phone. But a few things turned out. Number one was the price. She paid over $300. That was simply way too much. The second thing was that it was a blackberry. Again, I will stress that I am not a great gadget geek. I was thinking "I don't need a PDA". I thought that the organizing qualities were features of the phone that I'd never use.
Several more months went by. I was really eager to get a new cell, as I was planning to relocate and wanted to get this settled before things got crazy. Tmobile's site offered a great price on the pearl $150 after rebate, with no strings attached. I looked on other websites that offered the phone for free, but would require me to sign up for a 2 year contract of 40 dollars/month or sign up for wireless service which was another 20 dollars per month. If you add that up, these features would exceed the price of the phone. I decided that with that price, I could not turn down this deal. So I got the phone, with free shipping.
Features of the Phone
Of course , before I bought the phone I did some research. What first caught my attention was phone's beauty and style. I feel like I'm talking about a guy I'd like to date but it's really true: this phone is PRETTY! It was offered in several colors: silver, black, sapphire, red. I picked black. I went to the tmobile store and examined the phone myself and got more questions answered by the tmobile staff about the features of the phone.
I was looking for a phone which had a camera, video recording, could function as an mp3 player, and could be used internationally, as well as the other criteria I outlined above. This phone had all except the video camera which I found a little disappointing . The reason I still got the phone was because when I was looking at the other phones which had ALL of the features, most were sliders and flips. So I decided to abandon that feature and focus on others that I considered more important.
The camera is only 1.3 megapixels. It is not a great camera. But I was not really expecting a great camera. I just wanted a device that would take reasonable quality pictures in a digital format so I could sell stuff on ebay and amazon. Since I did not currently own a digital camera, I was using my 35mm camera, printing the photos and scanning them and then uploading. This was really timeconsuming. I also did not want to purchase a digital camera at this time. The camera on the pearl is just great for that purpose. I also wanted a camera on my phone in case , God forbid, I was ever in a car accident, and would need to take pictures right away. A camera phone would also suit that purpose nicely. There are plenty of other phones with better quality cameras than this one, but the price brackets were a bit more that what I was willing to pay.
The mp3 is awesome. I paid an extra 25 dollars for a special chip for extra storage to hold music on the phone. Right now I have about 400 songs on the phones. I use it when I go to the gym and am spinning. The sound quality is great. What I do not like are the earbuds. For some reason, the earbuds provided are of uneven length: the r ear cord is twice that of the left. This is really annoying because the short cord stays put but the long one always fall out. I called tmobile to complain about it and they said that the manufacturer (blackberry) is an affiliate of motorola , the company that provided the ear buds and all motorola buds are of a similar style. In order to get normal buds, I would have to pay more which I was kind of annoyed by. I would have preferred to exchange for the kind of buds I liked.
The phone is quad band length which makes it easier to use in an international setting. I have yet to test this feature because I have not been out of the country since purchasing it. However, as someone who does enjoy going abroad at least once a year, I wanted a phone where I could use it internationally. I also was looking to use the phone in particular regions: south asia, europe. This phone that that.
The phone has a QWERTY keyboard which everyone likes to boast about because it makes text messaging easier. I do not really use this feature at all. But I will say it makes it easier to type names into my address book.
I like being able to connect my phone to my laptop. I have never had a problem transfering files to and from phone. The case provided for the phone is one of the fake leather pocket things which I hate. I spent about another $30 for the a good case which has a clip so I can attach that to belt buckle.
I dropped this phone once. and its still working just fine, [fingers crossed]. I am not really a klutzy person but just for those curious about the durability. My friend also dropper hers said it the screen would be messed up thereafter. She had the insurance so she just got a brand new phone.
Something I am disappointed by is that Research in Motion(RIM) the company that writes blackberry programs does not have any programs for epocrates. I am a physician and I look for programs that can help me quickly look up medications, diagnoses, etc. The at and t TREO has this capability. However this does not yet exist for the pearl. I emailed the RIM staff and they said that they are currently working on it.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the pearl because it has most of the features.
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