RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120 Review
November 28th, 2007 | by Fitri |
There was a time when those who aspire to a BlackBerry to deliver their message mobile would be fitted with a fairly large and not too nice device around, and know that even if their handheld email was good at it was not good at much else. No music, no camera, for example. Combining staid appearance and functionality deprivation was enough of a dual challenge for some of the Blackberry avoid altogether.
Then BlackBerry maker Research In Motion decided that it could do more. She began to add functionality to devices and make them more attractive too, in an attempt to appeal to the genuine consumers and business people who want a little style. So, this year we have seen the arrival of the QWERTY keyboarded and Curve, just before that, the candybar style BlackBerry Pearl.
Is there still are large-format devices, and, more recently, all that I have examined in 8820, which I was, with the help of RIM since penning the review in August. But with the 8120 Pearl I think I am going to change their allegiance. The original Pearl did not quite do it for me. I hated SureType (which I shall come to a period of a few paragraphs), and the characteristics of the aircraft were not good enough to keep me happy.
But RIM has taken into account a large part of the criticisms that I made and others of the original Pearl, and BlackBerry handhelds in general and the Pearl 8120, while not perfect, is an improvement I believe that many people could live with.
Also, whatever the feature improvements, the new Pearl is a nice device research. The scheme is dark blue and chrome with the latter used for the left, right and top edges and the various salient, while the front and rear fascias are predominantly blue. It is comfortable to hold, is a slimline candybar handset. The actual dimensions are 107mm in height, 50 mm in width, 14mm thick and only 91g. His metal-like finish means he feels good in your hand.
The little miniature ball which sits under the screen and is used for navigation within and between applications remains as delightful as ever. It rolls in comfortably to the left or right thumb. I would like to see an auto-scrolling mode further implemented so that e-mails can be executed without throughout the thumb action, though.
To the left and right of the ball are the BlackBerry menu and keys back, and their left and right keys of appeal and end. The arrangement is unchanged from the original Pearl, and it works fine. There are also two “convenience keys’, one on the left and one on the right side. You can configure these applications to launch what device or feature you want.
Of the characteristics to the great news is that the Pearl 8120 includes Wi-Fi It is incredibly easy to scan for networks and then join them.
As with the original Pearl there is a camera at the back. It is greatly improved since the 1.3-megapixel camera on the original Pearl, and he can now draw on resolutions up to 2 megapixels. But it’s going to capture video too, which his predecessor could not do.
The music is playing to complete the 3.5 mm jack, but RIM allows things by not providing any hardware control buttons. To play around with playback you need to go into the music application, which gets a bit annoying at times.
Those who seek a 3G data should look beyond the Pearl 8120 is quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE. To be honest, I did not really feel hampered by the lack of 3G.
If you are a fan Facebook there is a dedicated soft, which could come in handy if you feel the need to update your profile and on everything.
Battery life proved to be reasonably good. I got the Pearl 8120 to play music continuously from a full charge for a little more than twelve hours. This will not beat many dedicated music players, but it is very competent for a mobile phone.
Verdict
With a Pearl 8120, RIM is obviously trying to push further into the consciousness of consumers and preserve its potency fans too. The device does not go far enough to capture all consumers - where 3G and oodles of internal memory, for example? But it shows that RIM is harder than ever to try to get out of its “business only”. Design-wise is on the button. Features-wise there is still a little way to go. And as a whole, it is certainly