Sunday, 21 January 2007

Blackberry Pearl

The Blackberry 8100 is RIM's first consumer-oriented GPRS device, sporting a 2Mpixel camera and the SureType keyboard layout. It is available in either black or white, depending on the operator:

Notes:

Pluses:

  • Able to send entire phonebook as Phonebook.vcf to a Mac from Bluetooth preferences (nice).
  • Does OBEX transfer of camera images (even nicer, even if it can't do a batch transfer).
  • USB storage mode (complete with option to encrypt contents of memory card, which turns it into a very nice "pendrive" for carrying documents around securely).

Minuses:

  • Battery won't last more than 2 days (whereas older models lasted up to a week).
  • Won't let you e-mail photos (only MMS them), which is kind of silly.
  • Does not support browsing through Bluetooth File Exchange.

Resources: