BLACKBERRY PEARL 8110

BlackBerry Pearl 8110 review

If you find yourself somewhere without a mobile phone signal and want to plan a route, well, then the GPS service is about as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot

We review the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8110 - which brings the traditionally elegant Blackberry email experience to a candybar-sized smartphone

The Pearl is a candybar smartphone that currently comes in three flavours. RIM seems to like bringing out a device in several slightly tweaked versions with different specifications. It can get a bit confusing, so let’s clarify the Pearl situation right here and now.

The BlackBerry is not just for suited and briefcased business bods. Oh no. That might be where the BlackBerry made its first home, but maker Research In Motion (RIM) wants to widen its reach, and with that in mind has launched the neat and tidy Pearl range of devices.

As we said, there are three versions. The 8100, 8110 and 8120. Their specifications are pretty similar, and you can check them out in detail for yourself at theBlackBerry Web site.

Some of the key differences are that the 8100 has no GPS or Wi-Fi while the 8110 has GPS but no Wi Fi and the 8120 adds in Wi-Fi but not GPS. Got that?

Our review sample was the 8110 variation, and it came from Vodafone where you can get it from free up to £102 depending on the contract you opt for. The contract price includes a year’s free use of Vodafone’s satnav software. This is an off-board system, which means it downloads information over the network when you want to use it.

The Pearl line of smartphones is small and tidy – they look like neat candybar mobile phones and the 8110 is just 107mm tall, 50mm wide and 14.5mm thick. It weighs 88g.

The PC connection is via a USB cable, and you get this too.

None of the BlackBerry Pearl range manages 3G. Instead the 8110 is Tri-band with GPRS. To be honest, the data operations didn’t seem to suffer for the lack of 3G during testing. It is probably only those who hanker for video calling that will rue its absence.

The Pearl will play music and has a 3.5mm headset connector so you can use your favourite earphones. With 64MB of on board memory you can’t store a great many tunes inside the Pearl, but there is a microSD card slot on the left side and so it is easy to add more.

There is a Web browser. The screen isn’t the greatest for viewing Web pages – we measured it at 2.2 inches corner to corner and 33mm wide x 40mm tall. But at least the browser is there if you need it

Pros:
Great for mobile email
Compact, candybar form factor
GPS

Cons:Mediocre multimedia performance
No Wi-Fi

Verdict: Brings BlackBerry mobile email to a very small format smartphone and adds in the bonus of a GPS antenna

PRICE: Rs.6000/- ONLY.