Life With The BlackBerry Pearl 8130

I’ve had my new BlackBerry 8130 for about a week now and I must say, while there are some cons over pros on this little device, it’s really rock-solid and stable. Gone are the days of random freezes and crashes like Treo’s and PocketPC’s in the past. I was actually able to leave a wide range of applications idling over night with no network issues (jmIrc, IM+). It seems to keep a stronger connection to the data network than any smartphone I’ve had in the past and with BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), my e-mail comes faster than usual without the battery drain.

With my Treo, I used ChatterEmail to get push e-mail using IMAP IDLE (RFC 2177) and with that combination, I could barely keep it going an entire day. Since the Canadians check my mail for me, I’m only downloading messages that have already been compressed and specially cooked for my BlackBerry (Just like Mom used to make!). While the only “true” push e-mail is offered on your @<carrier>.blackberry.com address which comes free with when you join the BB club, I’ve noticed only short delays, maybe 5 seconds to 5 minutes in most cases, for receiving mail on my SSL IMAP server. Considering to save battery life on my Treo I had to set mail checking intervals to 15 minutes, this is a good thing.

The form factor is probably what I love most about the phone and also what I hate most about it. It’s small, light, and so unlike a normal smartphone. I feel like I’m going to crush it or drop it constantly and that wouldn’t be good considering how expensive this little thing is. At the same time, I love being able to slip it in my shirt pocket — something I’d never attempt with my other smartphones, when I need to reach for it a moment later but don’t want to fiddle with the holster.

A lot of people complain about the cramped SureType keypad. It’s a full QWERTY layout midgetized. I’ve used QWERTY keypads for a long time now and I can tell you, it didn’t take but a few days to start blazing on this tiny keyboard. The secret, like I’m sure you’ve heard elsewhere is don’t look at the screen! SureType is pretty damn sure, getting about 80 to 90% of the words correctly with half the keys. Overall, I’m happy with the BlackBerry 8130. With a beautiful 2 megapixel camera, sleek look, and solid proven Operating System, what more could you ask for? Except for MMS, Wi-Fi….. I’ll just stop here.