| The 'BlackBerry Pearl 8100' is stylish, sleek, slim and elegant but thinner than the recently-launched 8700g (weighing 4.7 oz, measuring 2.8 in x 0.8 in x 4.3 inch), weighing 3.1 oz, with a 0.6 inch in thickness, 2 inch wide and a length of 4.2 inches. The Pearl is also lighter than a Motorola RAZR V3M in closed position, and packs a real punch. |
| The quad-band worldphone is one of the rarest candy-bar smartphones in the world. It has many firsts to its credit, compared with other BlackBerry devices, starting with its candy-bar look. This stands out in contrast to the parallelogram or oval looks of a conventional BlackBerry. |
| The model also has a personal media player with music, video and camera "� a definite attempt by RIM to move out of the corporate circuit and target the growing segment of young mobile users across the world. |
| It has a QWERTY keyboard, but with a difference. Here each key handles two letters and uses predictive text to support typing. For someone accustomed to a BlackBerry prayer, a surreptitious glance downwards to read or send e-mails, the keyboard would be a bit of a hassle as each key has a double or triple function. |
| It plays MP3 music, supports polyphonic, WAV, MP3 and MIDI files, enables storing and displaying of images, and handles audio-visual files. It can connect to a laptop over wireless, might be the first BlackBerry device to sport Bluetooth technology, and can be used as a remote control for powerpoint presentation or a slide show. |
| Bluetooth could also be used for a wireless headset that is available with the device. The Pearl also supports EDGE that pushes data three times faster than GPRS, enables web browsing and internet faxing. |
| Pearl has a 1.3 megapixel camera and a built-in flash that enables the user to take pictures. With the Nokia (N-series), Motorola and Sony Ericsson rolling out 2 megapixel camera phones, a 1.3 megapixel would have to be termed as "average". A major drawback is that the phone does not permit recording of video images. |
| Pearl features RIM's push e-mail system. Like the BlackBerry 8700g, Pearl also supports upto 10 POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts, with an easy set up and simple to use methodology. |
| This enables a user to sync with his company's server with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise to deliver corporate e-mail in real time. Like other RIM handsets, Pearl enables viewing of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat documents that come as e-mail attachments. However, editing it is not possible. |
| Personal Information Management (PIM) applications are also available on Pearl "� like address book, calendar and event manager "� standard features on all smart phones and handheld devices. Pearl has an exception, as it allows wireless synchronisation of PIM with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that is the office server. |
| Among another firsts is the memory card slot of the handset. The extendable memory is handy when the user has to extra files. Pearl is the first BlackBerry handset with a memory card. The Pearl sports a 2.25-inch TFT screen that displays 65,000 colours at a 240 x 260 resolution. |
| Last but not the least, Pearl would be the first BlackBerry device to support voice dialing, and considering BlackBerry handsets were a runaway success, selling over 6.29 million pieces worldwide, this could also be a box-office hit. |
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