BlackBerry creators RIM is now a fully paid up funtime member. Trying to move away from its stuffy business email straightjacket, every fruit machine launch sees the multimedia dial turned up a notch. It all started with the 8100 Pearl, wearing its slinky phone suit and crossing over to the mainstream, now its successor, the 8120 Pearl shimmies up more feature flourishes.
You’ll be playing a game of spot the difference with the new Pearl. BlackBerry fanatics will instantly detect the wavier keypad design, the more grippable TrackBall, the 3.5mm headphone jack and side loading hotswapple microSD card, but otherwise it hasn’t moved on much cosmetically from the streamlined and compact 8100.
We’ve banged on about BlackBerry’s push email easy-of-use and performance so we won’t bore you with more platitudes, but suffice to say the monkeys at London Zoo could send messages to their distant Orang-utan cousins - yes, it’s that simple.
The biggest feature upgrades are the camera hike from 1.3-megapixel to two and the inclusion of Wi-Fi. Unfortunately RIM is still seemingly allergic to the ways of 3G (it’s probably frightened of its excessive power drain) but at least Wi-Fi is an adequate substitute. After experiencing the sloth-like internet browsing over EDGE, web pages load like the clappers.
The megapixel boost is welcome but a little disappointing. With no autofocus and an impotent flash LED, the quality of the photos definitely won’t get you printing. However, BlackBerry has finally equipped the camera with video capture capabilities, shooting in a 240×180 pixel resolution. It’s blighted by judder and drag but its YouTube ready. Another ace addition is the Facebook app that lets you upload your snaps, receive ‘poke’ alerts and reply to messages quite easily on the hop.
The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is undoubtedly still the sleekest emailer and its feature refresh will just about get CrackBerry addicts yearning for a new fix.
Verdict
There’s just about enough new features on show for Pearl users to happily upgrade but to be honest we were looking for more of a radical refurbishment.
Best features
Compact slinky design
Easy to set up and use push email
Handy integrated Facebook app
Integrated 3.5mm headphone jack
Not so good
No 3G
Average camera and video quality
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