RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 review

The music player is reasonably good, and you can play tracks from a memory card. We like that you can easily set any track as your ringtone. Music carries on playing while you do other stuff, such as check your diary, and if a call comes in playback will pause and then resume when you are done.

We are less happy with the camera -- its 1.3 megapixels are only average -- and while we are pleased that both a flash and self-portrait mirror are included, we are very disappointed that you can't record video. There aren't any filters, such as sepia or greyscale, but there are some white balance settings -- sunny, cloudy, night and indoor -- and an automatic setting for this.

You can synchronise diary and tasks with the Pearl using the provided PC software, and of course you can send emails, either via your company's network if it supports BlackBerry or by using the Internet Email service offered through your network operator.

The Pearl uses the SureType system for writing emails and other text entry. Two letters share a single key and, as you type, software in the Pearl has a guess at the word you want -- when you spot it among those suggested you can use the trackball to pick it out.

This was just too slow for us and we found ourselves typing complete words as a faster option. The small size of the keyboard means you need to use fingertips and it is quite akin to texting -- but with a different key layout to that on other mobiles it could really annoy frequent texters.

Wi-Fi is a notable absence, but you will find Bluetooth.

Performance
The Pearl gets immediate plus points because it feels a lot more like a phone in the hand than we are used to with BlackBerry devices. The only other candybar format device from the company, the 7100, is a lot chunkier.

A key consequence of its size is that making and receiving voice calls is unproblematic and you don't feel like an idiot holding a PDA-sized device to your ear. On the other hand, the main reason for the BlackBerrys' existence, mobile email, does suffer slightly for being delivered into a tall format screen that is a lot smaller than those on PDA-sized BlackBerry devices.

The battery delivered well, giving us 9.75 hours of continuous music playback -- but note that the screen turns itself off after 2 minutes of non-use, so this isn't directly comparable with other tests where we can force the screen to stay on.

Call quality on our review handset from O2 was very good -- loud and clear both through the handset and on loudspeaker.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Kate Macefield