A note about insurance & porting... | BlackBerry Pearl 8100c Smartphone Slate Grey (AT&T)

Excellent Device | BlackBerry Pearl 8100c Smartphone Slate Grey (AT&T)

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	• BlackBerry Pearl 8100c Smartphone Slate Grey (AT&T) BlackBerry BlackBerry, 2006 average customer review:based on 42 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Amazing!!

This phone is simply amazing. I'm not a gadget freak & use the phone to make err... phone calls rather than using a multitude of features. The design & finish on this phone is amazing. Sound quality is excellent! Screen is very clear. Syncs very easily with Outlook etc. The sure type feature is very well done. Also note that there are no porting fees if you're new to Cingular/AT&T.
Finally,I bought the shield from shieldzone.com. It works like magic. I had a problem with all my other phones as I tend to keep it in the same pocket as my house key etc. Hence, all my phone got scratched pretty bad. But now with the little shield protecting my device, not a single itty-bitty scratch so far. Recommend the shield if you have the same scratch & paint chipping problem.

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A note about insurance & porting...

I absolutely love this phone - you could imagine how sad I was when it was stolen.

Upon purchasing it 3 months ago I took it to a cingular store to add/remove some features. Sales rep said insurance would be no problem (I wouldn't buy this pricey a phone without insuring it...) Essentially a lie by the rep that burned me later:

Come to find now that Cingular (and likely other carriers) WILL NOT INSURE THIS PHONE. Or the iPhone for that matter, and may other high cost phones. Something to keep in mind during your purchase. I won't buy this phone again for that reason.

Regarding porting fees - I'd checked with Amazon about this prior to purchasing and this is no longer a problem, so ignore all reviews about that issue.

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Excellent Device

So I decided a few weeks ago that it was time to get a new gadget (the weather, maybe..?). I love my Palm z22, but I've always wished I could just carry a single device. In addition, the display left quite a bit to be desired, and there was no bluetooth or way of attaching an external keyboard (yes, that's right-- I seriously want to be able to type up essays and such on my PDA... I'm not going to spend $700 on a laptop just so I can type in a reclined position) My initial plan was to upgrade my PDA to a Palm Tungsten E2 and my phone to the microscopic Pantech C3 flip phone with bluetooth. I still had some reservations, however. PDA's are practically dead in the market, and the E2 was quite a bit larger than the z22 (Why doesn't Palm just go ahead and make a smaller, super-slim Palm OS PDA with everything except for a phone built-in already? The technology is certainly there, and it could have the potential to bring back the PDA market for those who prefer not having their PDA tethered to a cell phone carrier).

So one day I headed over to the local mall and happened to walk into a Cingular store. I had never considered a Blackberry because they didn't have touch screens and always seemed bulky and ugly. What I stumbled upon in there was the Blackberry 8800. Playing around with the device, I was very impressed. Where the Windows Mobile Smartphones like the Samsung Blackjack and Motorola Q failed (mostly in the Personal Information Manager (PIM) functions... and absolutely miserably, at that), the Blackberry excelled. It wasn't quite as easy to navigate and enter information as my Palm because of the lack of a touch screen, but the device was fitted with a cool little trackball that allowed for multi-directional navigation, making getting used to the lack of a touch screen seem bearable, and maybe even a positive attribute (as it allows for one-handed operation.)

The 8800 screen was hi-res and absolutely beautiful, the whole unit was very thin and sleek, and it didn't run that god-awful, useless-for-anything-but-consumer-multimedia Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition! Still, it was a bit large for my taste and too expensive at $300. Looking around a bit more, I met my future device: the Blackberry Pearl. As it turns out, the Pearl was the first Blackberry to feature the new trackball, brilliant (self-adjusting for brightness) hi-res screen, sleek casing, and a camera and multimedia functions-- all in a bar-style unit just as thin and only moderately taller than a closed Motorola RAZR. Essentially, this was the 8800 packed into a smaller case with a camera for only a $150 upgrade. You name it, this phone can do it (and most of it quite well).

The form factor couldn't be more perfect. Everything about the phone is very customizable. There are 20 keys on the keypad, and the alpha characters are arranged in a QWERTY fashion with at most 2 letters on a key. Even with this, there is still a dedicated delete key, enter key, alt key, symbol key, space key, and caps key, all arranged similarly to a standard keyboard and easily accessible. If you want, you can even sync up a full sized bluetooth keyboard (and buy yourself a mini version of MS Word!). The center 12 keys are highlighted and arranged like a normal cell phone. This makes the unit excellent for use as a regular phone (I'm very pleased with the call quality), but a huge step up from trying to type on one. The "SureType" system does a brilliant job of figuring out what you're typing, and it learns the words that you use most often over time. If you want, you can shut off the SureType and use multi-tap, which is still pretty decent since you never have to tap a key more than once.

I almost think that SureType is faster in many uses than a full QWERTY keyboard, since it requires less finger movement and allows for larger buttons. After a short while, it becomes very intuitive. A few of the small details that I love about the Pearl include the ability to put it on standby, mute the ringer in a hurry, and shut off the network if you don't want to receive any calls (and don't want it blipping and feeding back through a pair of nearby speakers) but still want to use the device as a PDA. On top of all this, the Blackberry software allowed me to transfer all of the data from my Palm z22 (all 300 tasks and tons of calendar and contacts) directly to the Blackberry-- categories, priority levels, and all! To top it all off, the battery life is excellent.

Of course, there are a few downsides to the Pearl. For one, the 1.3 MP digital camera doesn't record video, and while the pictures are better than many camera phones, they're not exactly jaw-dropping (It's still nice to have a camera with you at all times, however), and let's just say the music and video player functions are no iPod replacement. Still, all in all, this is the coolest little portable computer or gadget... ever. If you're looking for a small phone and PDA combo (especially for the PIM functions), the Pearl is the best thing out there. I don't have a data plan, but I tried out the web, maps, and e-mail at the store, all of which worked great. I'd love to be able to use them, but I don't really have the need and the data plans are astronomically priced.

As soon as the Pearl (newly AT&T branded) arrived on my doorstep I wrapped it in a ShieldZone InvisibleSHIELD, which I had ordered online a few days earlier. If you haven't heard of ShieldZone and BestSkinsEver.com, basically they make nearly indestructible, clear screen and full-body skins to protect most portable devices on the market. They're a bit of a chore to put on, but they last the life of the product and prevent any and all scratching for pathetically OCD people like me. I will never buy another portable without buying one of these skins first.

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