Rating  - Great Phone, just not 5 star!
I have used a lot of cell phones in my lifetime and wish that I could give this a 5 star review, but I can't. This one is really good for what I use it for, which is just to stay on top of e-mail, mainly at night and on the weekends. I would not recommend it for web surfing or other functions. The manual is poor at best and the functions that I want to find out about, are not listed in the manual. You have to basically find them yourself by searching on the phone itself, which is hit or miss. I like the compact size as this phone fits in a pocket of a pair of Jeans or Khakis well. Good for traveling also. Other complaint is the battery charge only lasts about 2 days. For what I use it for, I would recommend. Others maybe disappointed though.
Rating - Great phone with a few bugs, Sprint is so-so
Bought this Pearl after using a Palm Centro for almost a year and other flip phones for years before that. I liked the feature set of the Centro but audio quality was horrible, and the operating system was very antiquated and incompatible with many newer mobile web features like the gmail app, google maps my location etc. Debated between this and iphone but didn't want more expensive plan and AT&T overall crappiness.
One thing to remember is that there is no perfect smart phone. You sacrifice size to get a bigger keyboard, or choice of carrier and actual tactile keys to get an iphone, etc. Overall though I really like this phone.
Audio Quality: Superb! Finally a phone that actually performs well in its primary function. Calls are loud and clear, and people on the other end say I sound clear with minimal background noise (important when walking NYC streets). Interestingly a friend's Verizon Pearl doesn't have as good quality, so maybe they changed something in the Sprint model.
Form factor: sleek and sexy. Fits easily in your pocket. Fun to look at and hold.
Battery Life: seems pretty good for a smart phone. 3g data eats away at battery life but holds its own next to Palm or iphone.
User Interface: better than palm, not as incredible or cool as iphone. Definitely intuitive. Operating system is pretty clear and after a few days I'm getting the hang of texting, emailing, shortcuts etc. Trackball is fairly easy to use but isn't as super sensitive as it could be. I wish the blackberry was more customizable. I can't figure out easy ways to, say, keep my text messages in a different location from a voicemail notification or an email. It integrates everything into one folder which can be annoying. Being a gmail user, I just didn't set up my blackberry mail thing and just use the gmail app, which is fast, easy and great. One glaring stupid bug is that when your internal memory fills us, your texts are automatically deleted. There is no way to save them to your SD card. Duh duh duh! Hopefully they will fix this down the road with upgrades.
BB Message: Cool feature I didn't know about till after. Simple and QUICK way of texting other BB users.
Multimedia: very good camera (2 megapixels, pretty sharp) with flash and video feature. Phone has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack which is GREAT as you can use any headphones (most phones have the mini 2.5mm jack). The audio player is clunky and poorly designed, no where approaching an ipod level. It's easy enough to, say, start a record, but pausing, navigating, stopping etc easily requires too many steps. But for just playing tunes on the subway, in the car, at the gym, it's at least functional. I have a 4gig memory card in it so can store approx 60-70 cd's at high quality. I've read there are 3rd party players you can buy that are better.
Keyboard: One worry I had was switching from the full qwerty of the Centro to the Pearl's modified predictive text qwerty. I've found it surprisingly "smart" when typing and it's probably actually faster than using a full qwerty phone once you learn to trust it. It's not flawless but definitely very good and I don't feel inhibited. I wish there was a feature to easily switch between T9 mode and single key entry mode but it involves going thru menus etc. would be cool to have a toggle on and off on the keyboard. But overall really not a problem.
Other things: Blackberry has a HUGE online community, so an advantage of using this phone is that it's easy to learn more about it online as there are countless chatrooms and blackberry enthusiasts.
SPRINT service: Good coverage, rarely have a problem finding bars in urban or rural settings. Definitely a good deal. $89.99 for 900 minutes, free data, unlimited text and GPS. Probs best 3g deal in America (T-mobile is slightly less but not 3g). Customer service is HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE. They are incompetent or rude, or both. They will screw up your requests repeatedly. As long as you don't deal with them too much you will enjoy your phone. I've read they are making strides to change this so here's to hoping...
Overall this is probably the best phone I've had. It's not perfect but definitely ahead of the Palm Centro or any standard clamshell phone. I recommend it. This is a consumer-oriented phone and makes it easy to text, email, surf, play mp3s, and most importantly, make clear calls.
Rating  - Sprint service is the WORST
A word about Sprint: They used to be the best, and they are now the worst. The absolute worst.
If you call them today, July 15'th 2008, you will get through the prompts until you are given a wait-time and then the systems tells you to call back later and hangs up on you. I'm not surprised at all. They got rid of 80 % of their customer service workforce.
Things have appeared on my bill for a year that shouldn't be there. I have made 5 attempts to fix this and finally gave up. Plan on a two-hour call to get something accomplished and then prepare yourself to be utterly crazed with anger when you see that nothing was actually done several times. A lady from Sprint called me trying to sell something and extend my contract, I laughed so hard, that she actually tried to fix my problems. She said she did and of course, it's still on my bill.
I'm turning off my phone today...
Go to the Product Information page
Customer Reviews for BlackBerry,8130,843163017658,B00104HHJC, |
