The BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is the first device manufactured by Research In Motion to have a built in camera, expandable memory and a host of multimedia features.

BlackBerry Pearl 8100 Design

RIM have made some major design changes to the traditional BlackBerry form. The most notable of these changes is the removal of the trackwheel for navigation, used on every BlackBerry device until now. The replacement for the trackwheel is the trackball, which sits in the centre of the device underneath the screen. You can move the trackball in any direction which means that when scrolling though menu screens you can move both vertically and horizontally at the same time.

                                   

The Pearl is also significantly thinner than any other BlackBerry (or most phones for that matter). The ability to make new devices thinner is mainly due to the new trackball system. The trackwheel mechanism on all other BlackBerry devices is quite large, and is what was preventing RIM from making their devices thinner and more desirable. Because the mechanics behind the trackball are so minimal, devices can now be designed as thin as 14mm.

As the Pearl is more of a phone ‘style’ device, RIM decided to use the Suretype keyboard on this model, which uses two letters for each key on the thumb board. This helps to ensure the device is not too wide, whilst still having enough space to type emails without annoyance. The Send and End keys remain with a camera button on one side of the device and a voice dialling button on the other (although these can be re-programmed).

BlackBerry Pearl 8100 Enhancements

For the first time ever Research In Motion have worked to develop a media rich BlackBerry. The Pearl sports a 1.3 mega pixel camera with built in flash which can save images on to the internal memory, or alternatively, a MicroSD memory card (the devices ships with a 128MB card in the box).
               

Images can be sent via MMS and even email now for BlackBerry Internet Service customers and those running BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 4.1 Service Pack 2 or above. If you’re running a BlackBerry Enterprise Server and wish to prevent the ability to take pictures with the BlackBerry Pearl (some companies now have security policies which prevent camera phones in the workplace), there are IT Policies available which can lock out the camera on each device, showing the user the following on their screen when trying to use the camera

The ability to prevent the external memory card from being used is also available. All these policies have to be set server side, and are only available on BlackBerry Enterprise Server versions 4.0 Service Pack 6 and 4.1 Service Pack 2. You can now store MP3’s on the BlackBerry Pearl 8100, and a stereo headset is provided with each device should you decide to take advantage of this. Another great enhancement on the new BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is the voice command facility. This gives you two key abilities; the first is voice dialling which traditionally you had to record your voice prompt for each person in your phone book – very tedious. The BlackBerry Pearl uses an advanced system for matching up the sounds of letters in to words, so you can say to your BlackBerry “call James” and it will look in your address book for James. The BlackBerry knows what the letters J-A-M-E and S sound like when you put them together and therefore calls the correct person. If you have a mobile and home number for that person, again you’ll be prompted for which number you wish to call. Over and above this you can just tell your BlackBerry Pearl the number you wish to call, so instead of “call James” you’re saying “call 0800 123000”. The second ability of the voice command facility is the option to check information about the device and network.



For example, tell the BlackBerry Pearl to “check battery” and it’ll tell you how much battery is left. Ask it to “check coverage” and it’ll tell you the coverage for your area. This goes for a whole host of features from checking the network status through to telling you what your own phone number is should you forget it! All together the BlackBerry Pearl is a well designed and carefully thought out device. RIM have successfully paired up the traditional email and menu system features which have made BlackBerry the leading mobile email and communications service with additional features which some other products do have, but don’t do anywhere near as well or as efficiently.

To place an order or learn more about the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 phone please don't hesitate to contact: James Poole or Alex Phillips