When it comes to the BlackBerry, I can see why they call them “CrackBerrys”. They’re addicting, although I’ll have to take other people’s word that crack is addicting. I’m not willing to do a product-by-product comparison just yet. As if voice mail and cell phones aren’t quick enough, we now need instant messaging via a portable device. In our defense, it cuts down on having to talk out loud to your spouse on the phone while at work. The cubicles always have had ears, no matter where you work, so it’s nice for people not to know your “conversations” and also to not have an email paper trail on your work’s email system.
The nicest thing about my BlackBerry Pearl is the ability to eliminate an extra device I had – the Palm Pilot. I used my Palm religiously for the address book and contacts functionality but not much else. Since the BlackBerry phone has both of those items, I just reduced what I need to carry around by one.
With it being smaller than the other BlackBerrys, the keys had to be condensed to 2 per button. It’s still the standard QWERTY keyboard schema and the key is to NOT look up at the screen while typing a word. As you type, it begins to figure out which word you want and all possible choices. It sounds difficult but it’s really not and I’m quite amazed at how rarely it chooses the wrong word.
The interesting thing is now that phones are becoming an all-inclusive piece of multimedia, we’ve gone from super-small phones to ones that are now bigger. That’s the only thing about dumping my Motorola phone that I miss about it. The smallness of it was a huge plus, although this Pearl is the smallest of the Blackberry family.
The camera on this phone, just like all other cell phones, is meant for taking casual shots, not detailed ones. That being said, it does come in handy. I’ve included a few shots below from what I’ve taken so far. The first shot is of me this morning stuck behind a MARTA train on the highway! It’s not every day that you’re on the highway and are behind a mass transit train.
Here’s a few my nephew took at the Gladiators game for me. That's my daughter and sister-in-law in the first one.
