BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 - Black (Unlocked) Smartphone

The Pearl 3G styling is superb. The bezel around the screen looks angular and shiny, just like a cut and polished gem. The media keys are barely visible making the device look clean with a beautifully curved grid of keypad buttons, one of the best looking color schemes I have seen to date.

The 3G Pearl is no longer designed to be an entry-level smartphone; it’s now a full-featured powerhouse, so streamlined it has the feel of a sports car. The device is light and curvy on the back making it a pleasure to hold and to use. I found that the somewhat stiff rubberized sides mean harder to press convenience keys and volume control buttons.

The thing about the Pearl 3G that convinced me to migrate from a Bold 9000 is that it’s basically the same guts as a 9700, but in a much smaller and stylized package. I probably wouldn’t have gone with the Pearl 3G if it had compromised on the features like some previous Pearl models had done by omitting WiFi or real GPS.

Migration from another BlackBerry is the way to go if you’re interested in the Pearl 3G. With the system having access to all my friends’ names in the phone book, the only time that SureType seems slower is when I’m typing a password in the mandatory multi-tap mode, or using language that I know the BlackBerry won’t recognize.

The software, hardware and battery are specifically tuned to play music for extended periods of time just like the 9700. I love the dedicated media buttons; not having to switch your application in order to change the volume, pause, or fast-forward is priceless. At home I’ve been using the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway and it makes the BlackBerry feel like the ultimate remote control.

The media buttons are controlled by a single flexible piece of plastic on the top of the device. It works the same as all the modern optical trackpad devices: play/pause and mute are in the center, rewind is on the left and fast-forward is on the right with volume controls on the top-right side. I’ve been using much more music features how that it’s easier to access, so much so that my 9100 now has more songs than my iPod.

The ease of running music on my device has often made me forget about it when I pick up my phone to make a call.

After owning a couple touchscreen phones and dealing with the screens not responding or accidentally being activated, I wanted an easy to use smartphone with buttons. I did some research and found the blackberry pearl to fit my needs exactly: bar phone, buttons, smaller size, long battery life, and a current model. The phone I won was used, but in excellent condition. I have not had a single problem with the phone in the couple months I have owned it. It (knock on wood) has not frozen yet, it holds its charge for 3 days with a large amount of texting and emailing. When I talk on the phone for an extended period of time, the battery will usually last jut over 2 days. The suretype texting took some getting used to, but I can text faster than I could on the touchscreen phones I owned before. One of the few downsides would be the size of the screen. You have to zoom in a lot to view a webpage and you can only see a small window of the page at one time; however, that is to be expected with a small phone like this.
For a busy college student who treats her phone like an appendage, the pearl does what it needs to without going overboard. I don't need a million apps or the latest games, just the basic call/text features, email, wifi, and reliability.

I've had a BlackBerry 8120 for nearly 4 years and decided to upgrade to the 9100. It's a great improvement from it's predecessor. The camera is much crisper, though I noted there is still no ability to zoom while recording video (maybe I'm being too ambitious haha). The audio is magnificent. I was concerned that it was made in Mexico (my 8120 was made in Hungary) as I read reviews about bad quality control. But the device appears to be intact. The only thing I didn't like about this device was that the keypad takes some getting used to because the keys are much smoother than the previous model. For those of you wondering about user interface, BlackBerry 9100 supports foreign user interface meaning you can have your menus in Japanese, Korean, etc if you like. You just have to load the proper device software. Overall, I'm very happy with this product.

I would say that if you've formerly owned a BlackBerry 8100/8120/8130 then you would be happy with this purchase. ^^

I'm pretty much in love with this phone. I just change my BlackBerry Curve 8530 for this one and I'm glad I did. It's smaller and it has a flash for the camera. The camera also has better quality (I believe 3MP) and the resolution of the screen itself seems better. The only downside is the SureType keypad, which I'm still not used to using it. I'm pretty slowing when texting but hopefully this will change soon. I'm glad I found a slightly used BB Pearl 9100 on eBay for a good price. I'm really loving it! Also, the battery holds good charge for now.

Sit down comfortably, because any discussion of a new Blackberry device is not so simple and I would not like to offer you just a dry account of specs and features. Feelings and emotions will do much better. I like that RIM can still produce unique smartphones both in terms of features (which is rather illusory) and design. As I want to share my emotions with you the manufacturer must have had an intention to put this emotion in a new Pearl too. Remember that the tried and trusted Blackberry 8100 has been in continuous production for years. It was the first Blackberry for many and they are still happy to use this accessible smartphone. An unpretentious phone offers a stunning battery life. If you do not use the proprietary boosted battery or torture this model (which is too simple for that) you can get at least one week of true mobility. 8100 was (and still is) a beautiful model, which should definitely get into Top 100 of best gadgets of the century. A true living legend. I guess that 9100 will follow suit. I was convinced during a 1 week use. I will not touch upon software features, but will speak about what’s on the outside. For the first time I got hands on a Blackberry without a QWERTY keypad, which is not nice, but I could not find another option in Moscow at the time. It will be even more interesting.