Pearl Has What It Takes For Blackberry Specs

With Research in Motion's line of BlackBerry products, we've grown accustomed to portable phones perfectly suited for the professional market. And this time, the Canadian company scores again with its 8100 Pearl, a sleek and thin mobile that is sure to find a wide audience.

But before getting to today's topic, I know I've talked a lot about cell phones recently, but I promise to return to digital cameras next week.

I must insist, however, that the 8100 Pearl from BlackBerry is worth the detour. Truth be told, I wasn't expecting such a nice phone. It is nothing short of truly surprising. Black, thin, chromium-plated sides, very classy . . . it's a BlackBerry in an evening gown. It appears to have been designed not only for the professional woman or the businessman, but also for anyone who enjoys the finer things in life. It makes just about any other phone on the market appear old in comparison.

Having said that, it must also be noted that the 8100's black plastic shell is a magnet for fingerprints, but that's just about the only aspect I found disappointing.

Its screen, rather large for this type of one-piece phone, is very pleasing. Its colors, brightness and resolution more than hold their own against the best screens currently available.

If you've ever handled a BlackBerry and especially powered with Blackberry Pearl software, you know that its menus and functions are usually accessed through a scroll wheel on the side. But on the 8100 Pearl, this wheel has been replaced by a ball - located between the screen and the keyboard -- similar to those found on portable computers. Translucent, it closely resembles a pearl, hence the phone's name.

I honestly found it quicker than the scroll wheel, if a bit less precise.

Just underneath the ball, as on other BlackBerry products, we find a complete QWERTY keyboard, with all keys clearly visible. In other words, each key represents two letters and the BlackBerry's internal dictionary figures out the word you're typing. It's rather efficient, even though I must admit that I found the black-and-white keys somewhat confusing. It's still not on a par with the full keyboard offered by the Motorola Q, Nokia E62 or the Treo 650, but it is still more efficient and more natural than the T9 dictionary used by regular, 12-key cellphones.

But what I found most annoying was the capricious combination of lock-unlock keys. I frequently needed several tries to successfully unlock the keyboard.

Another novelty, or transgression, for a BlackBerry is the inclusion of a 1.3-megapixel digital camera in the 8100. While its resolution is nothing to brag about, the camera is clearly easy and fun to use.

Finally, for those who can't live without their multimedia sights and sounds, the Pearl comes with 64 MB of memory and expandable memory via microSD card, the latest generation of ultra small, semi-removable flash memory cards; and believe me, a microSD card is so small you may need tweezers to handle it.

Another piece of good news: the Blackberry Pearl software has the advantage that Pearl's audio quality is so good that it is almost perfect. My ears give it a good 4 or even a 4.5 out of 5. You'll no longer have to speak up since, as with a regular phone, your normal tone of voice will suffice.

Blackberry Software