BlackBerry Pearl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Blackberry Pearl | |
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| Screen | 240x260 pixels, 65.536 Color TFT LCD |
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| Ringtone | Polyphonic Sound (72 voices), Real tones (MP3) |
| Memory | 64MB Internal, MicroSD slot |
| Networks | EDGE, GSM 800, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900 |
| Physical size | 107 x 51 x 15 mm |
| Weight | 90.7g |
The BlackBerry Pearl is a GSM cellular phone developed by Research In Motion, and the first Blackberry device with a camera and other multimedia features. It was released in third quarter of 2006.
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[edit] Specifications
The Pearl comes with the following standard features:
- 1.3 megapixel camera with flash, self portrait mirror, and 5x digital zoom
- Media player with support for MP3, AAC, AMR, polyphonic MIDI and WAV sound formats
- Media player with support for MPEG-4 and H.263 video formats
- Bluetooth 2.0
- Address book & Calendar
- Web browser
- BlackBerry Maps
- Push e-mail
- Voice Dialing
- Speakerphone
- SMS and MMS text messaging
- Instant messaging (on T-Mobile version only)
- Supports up to 2GB MicroSD (OS versions .51 and above)
Blackberry Pearl is aimed towards both business users and consumers. Its advertising campaign features several people including Mariska Hargitay and Douglas Coupland.
The BlackBerry Pearl provides Quad-Band network support on 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS and EDGE networks to allow for international roaming between North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. It does not support high speed 3G data capabilities such as UMTS or HSDPA.
[edit] Comparison with other BlackBerry devices
Most BlackBerry devices have a full keyboard. The Pearl uses a modified QWERTY layout on a 4 row 5 column keypad, with a predictive input algorithm known as SureType. Typing on a Pearl is different than the use of other non SureType BlackBerry devices.
The Pearl supports the full range of BlackBerry enterprise functionality.
Unlike most BlackBerries, the Pearl includes a music player and other multimedia features. It requires the purchase of a MicroSD memory card to support storage of multimedia files beyond the 64MB provided internally.
Most notably, the Pearl uses a white trackball smilar in appearance to a white pearl instead of the traditional BlackBerry scroll wheel. This facilitates horizontal scrolling and is the origin of the Pearl's name.
The Pearl is currently available with T-Mobile or Cingular and Cincinnati Bell Wireless service in the United States, Airtel in India, Rogers Wireless in Canada, Vodafone in New Zealand and all networks in the UK.
[edit] Problems
- The music/video player is extremely limited without the purchase of a MicroSD card.
- Some users of other BlackBerry devices have difficulty adjusting to the SureType text input system.
- Changes to some phone options and other software configuration changes frequently do not take unless the phone is rebooted by removing the battery.
- Third party applications have the potential of interfering with phone functionality.
- The phone can still be turned off accidentally while in holsters and pockets even while the keys are locked.
[edit] Third-party applications for the BlackBerry Pearl
- Opera Mini is a third party web browser compatible with the Blackberry that allows browsing to normally unbrowsable sites such as myspace.
- Google makes a Gmail application with most of the features of the web-based version. It is available at http://mobile.google.com.
- Google makes a mapping application that works well on the Pearl. It is available at http://mobile.google.com.
- A large amount of third party software is available for the Pearl. A large selection of software can be purchased at http://www.handango.com/blackberry/, http://www.bplay.com, and other third party vendors.
