Review: BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 was announced back at WES just a short month ago, and is about ready for primetime. It builds upon RIM’s older Pearl family with an upgraded HVGA display, optical trackpad to replace the now-defunct trackball, a new 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, and is the first BlackBerry to host Wi-Fi 802.11n. When combined with BlackBerry OS 5.0, the Pearl 3G is effectively a miniaturized Bold 9700.

Coming from the Bold 9000, I was already prepared to miss the luxurious screen size, but remembered my time with the original Pearl 8100 fondly, mostly in terms of how pocketable it was and how quick I was with the SureType keypad. Wi-Fi n was a big pull, and I was curious to see how much better it was than the Wi-Fi on the vast majority of handsets I had used in the past.

From the pictures alone, the 9100 looked like a solid, if perhaps too-familiar refresh on an established family of BlackBerrys. Carrying the first proper BlackBerry brand name, the Pearl 3G had a significant heritage to live up to. So… does it?

Pros

Pocketable
Tight design and construction
Smooth, stable operating system

Cons

Reduced screen size
Little gain from Wi-Fi 802.11n
Optical trackpad susceptible to sunlight interference

Hardware

First off, it has to be said that the BlackBerry Pearl 3G is extremely well built. The various parts are very snugly assembled, and the keypad is much tighter than I remember the old Pearl being. Build quality aside, the 9100 has mad style. We’ll get into that in a bit. First, the hard specs.

Dimensions: 108 x 50 x 13.3 mm, 93 g
Display: 2.6″, 360 x 400 LCD display
Processor: 624 Mhz processor
Memory: 256 MB
Battery: 1150 mAh (5 hours talk, 18 days standby)
Bands: 800 (850)/1900/2100 MHz UMTS (also in 900/1700/2100 MHz variety), 850/900/1800/1900 MHz EDGE
Bluetooth: 2.1, includes Stereo Audio profile

So, back to looks. The chrome accent is nice and dark, and not so obnoxiously silver as other BlackBerrys. The rubberized siding and seamlessly-integrated convenience keys (much like the 8520 and 8530 Curve) add a tonne of grip and smoothness. The lines are both sharp and curvy, reminding me a lot of the X10 Xperia. The battery door adopts the same single-slate style as the 8500-series BlackBerry, which has always been my favourite since it minimizes the number of moving parts to fiddle with. Not all moving parts are bad, though – there’s a new one under the battery door that allows you to easily pop out the SIM card without having to dig and pry. It’s much better than the hinge that most other BlackBerrys are packing.

As nice as the size is, it’s not actually that much bigger than the first Pearl, as you can see compared here to the iPhone and BlackBerry 8120. It’s got a nice amount of weight to it without being too heavy – a very nice medium. As far as input goes, the optical trackpad, though ostensibly a step up from the older trackball, still fritzes out in direct sunlight. That’s almost as inconvenient as occasionally getting grit stuck beneath the trackball, really. RIM’s two-letter-per-key SureType keyboard has a learning curve to it, so be prepared. Like most predictive systems, you have to learn to trust the dictionary to figure out what it is you’re trying to say. There’s one major caveat with SureType: if you type something wrong, it will predict your word wrong, and probably mess up the word even worse than if you just screwed up a single letter on a QWERTY keypad. If you’re comfortable with prediction, you might also want to look into the 9105 variant, which has a standard numeric keypad that feature phone users might be more comfortable with. We aren’t sure if the 9105 is going to be exclusive to Europe right now, but we’re guessing so.

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About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

Robert

Nice review. The Pearl 9100 keyboard is a huge improvement over the squeaky 8100 series. And it is more ergonomic to type on; I can find the correct key easily on a 9100. The predictive type is more accurate.

The screen size is plenty big enough for my business use, but not for much gaming and certainly not for watching videos.

The 3.2MP camera is a huge improvement. Maybe the best on a BlackBerry. Not only AF bit we now get image an stabilzer. Quite usable pics can be made in low light without flash. For business I can now capture business cards.

– Robert.
Misaki

I really love my Pearl 8110. It has worked well and I love the ability of setting any song of any size as a ringtone, message tone and as an alarm. When I bought it I found the trackball to be really useful (I dont like all the touchscreen madness). Hence I find this model to be a great update from the 1st gen Pearl. When is it coming to AT&T? I was considering to drop out from AT&T now that my contract expired, but if they sell the 9100 soon, then it'll be another 2 years of awesome.
JC

This phone is a pain when it gets to put it in call forward. Very long and fastidious process. I heard some people get away using the *72 and *73 from their provider, but here it does not work. If I had known, I would not have bought this phone. Call forwarding cell phone is something many people do several times a day. How come RIM has not thought of that???
Sabra_eriko

pearl is different blackberry from other version
i really love it
Michaelmjohnson

Im guessing your pearl is new..
mine was very good!
for the first two months.

Now 7 months in, i click a button for it to stick and type the same letter 50 times.
Battery never lasts, randomly deletes apps, has always dropped calls, terrible wifi, no matter where I am, its been sent in and repaired once, was crap again in a week…
Trinidarkie17

currently considering getting a bb.. should i go for the curve9300 or the 9100 pearl?? :/
http://www.blackberry-unlocking.org/unlock-blackberry/9100 Unlock 9100

This phone is not that good as the Blackberry Bold but i think that for kids and young teens the Blackberry Pearl can be a good… thanks for the review… it was interesting to learn a few things about this model.