Audio: George Acosta “Say It” (Rob Searle Main Mix)
So my new Blackberry 8100 finally came in the mail today. I’ve been playing with it nonstop … and I must say it’s a pretty darn good phone. That’s not to say I haven’t found some flaws with it. Here are some of my own personal thoughts on the Blackberry 8100.
Let’s start with the good…
Display screen: It has a reasonably large display screen and it does display beautiful bright colors. I’ve really enjoyed looking at pictures of Hannah in full color and contrast.
Messages/texting: Now once you learn the keys - text messaging is natural and fast. I enjoy having the message preview thumbnail… it shows the first few lines of the message (great feature.)
Calendar: The calendar has all the normal features any phone has… date, time, and personal tones to play when an event happens.
Media: The phone has a very simple media player that supports MP3, AAC, AMR, MIDI, and WAV sound formats. As for the video formats it supports MPEG-4, H.263, and AVI. The phone comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera with flash, self portrait mirror, and 5x digital zoom. Now I was hoping for a larger megapixel with this phone… but I have to say this phone takes some amazing pictures. Here are some I snapped at the mall:



Not bad huh? Personal I’ve never seen a phone take such clear and smooth pictures before.
NOTE: If you want to fully use these great media formats you HAVE to BUY a MicroSD card (yeah like you want to spend even more money) the Blackberry Pearl supports up to 4GB.
Alright that was just a small dip into the goods… I have more but let’s move onto the bad!
Battery life: I’m not sure if this happens to most Blackberry users but my phone came with a dead battery! Most new phones come with batteries with 30% or more life. I had to wait 3 hours before I could use my new phone… not a good foot to start on.
Text messaging: 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.” I personal think Suretype is just a waste of time… I use the double tap (it gets the job done.)
Video playback: It was so cool (at first) to have a phone that can play video playback. But it’s a little funny trying to watch videos on it… the screen isn’t that big. They should have killed the video playback feature and put in a video recorder. Oh yeah the Blackberry Pearl doesn’t have the feature to record little short films. Why? I have no clue…
Load time: At first the phone would LOAD & LOAD… why? It was such a pain to just open an image or play a song. But now the phone is running much fast with little load time.
The body: I was disappointed with the Blackberry’s body… plastic? Why in the world would you make the whole damn thing in plastic? Plastic likes to chip easy and just looks bad. If I’m paying top dollar for a phone I want something strong and beautiful. Not some cheap looking plastic toy.
So that’s my personal rant on the Blackberry 8100 (sorry for any miss spelling… I did this review fast) I just think if you’re going to spend a lot of money on a cell phone – things should be done right.
It’s still a wonderful and smart phone. I love my Blackberry Pearl 8100… and if you make or have the extra cash get one.

Much love!