BlackBerry Pearl

I got the new BlackBerry Pearl 8100 about a month back and so far the phone is great. Granted when Apple came out with their iPhone announcement a couple weeks after getting the Pearl, I had buyers remorse but that lasted for a day.

The phone is very slim and feels good to the touch, typing is a bit of a challenge on the smaller sized phone but doable. One of the coolest features that I have been using is the voice dialing, it recognizes the names from the address book and dials them based on your speech recognition, and it works even with some of the more complicated names in my address book.

One of the main reasons I got the latest iteration of the BlackBerry is because I didn’t have a lot of time to tinker around and move my data from one platform to another. So having used the BlackBerry 7100 I was sorta forced to get a new BlackBerry. Since I use a PowerBook, that always compounds the issue since Mac and Blackberries don’t like to place nice in the sandbox. But, using PocketMac SyncManager I was able to sync my data to the new Pearl. It wasn’t all smooth sailing but once I figured out the order in which to connect the Pearl to the PowerBook it was seamless. If not done precisely as described below, it will fail and make you want to throw the motherfu!#@$@!# Pearl out the window and kick your PowerBook to the curb.

1. Launch PocketMac SyncManager
2. Connect Pearl to PowerBook via USB Cable
3. Hit the green Sync button

I would recommend the Pearl if you are looking for a small form factor phone, then the usual large screen, large size BlackBerries.