Research in Motion. $399.99 with two-year term; $449.99 with one-year term from Rogers
I was complaining to a colleague the other day that I never got the hang of the predictive-text feature on so many cellphones, and he said the best way to deal with predictive text is not to look at the screen while I'm typing. I was a little dubious, but I tried it and it indeed seemed to help.
Then I got the BlackBerry Pearl.
No, it did not make me completely forget about the BlackBerry I use, the 8700, which has the full 26-letter keyboard. But it was good advice — and it was made better because Research in Motion has enhanced its proprietary SureType technology, which learns the language you generally use to predict your typing better. I found it much easier — when you have a name like mine, it's hard to find a phone that can predict my typing without some sort of learning mechanism.
I mention this minor feature first because it's a good example of the entire Pearl experience. With a clarified user interface and a simpler navigational system, everything seems to be easy to learn. You start playing with the Pearl, and within the hour you've figured out most of it by yourself, without having to rummage about in the manual. Well, almost everything: There are a couple of camera features I had to stick my nose into the manual to discover.
As for looks, the Pearl is a beauty — though metaphorically it's odd that this is one pearl that doesn't come in a clamshell. Like the Motorola's RAZR, the Pearl is sure to attract a significant market by its design alone. It's the size of a small chocolate bar (not even 100 grams), has a smooth black body with understated polished chrome accents, and a colour screen (240 by 260 pixels) bright enough to be seen in direct sunlight. The whole unit sits very neatly on your fingers while your thumb is doing the typing.
It's a quiet kind of design, not one that shouts cutting-edge technology, like the RAZR, but whispers it quietly.
It also has a speakerphone, two buttons on the side that you can program to call up whichever application you want, and Bluetooth 2.0 for wireless connections with headphones and notebook computers. You can read PowerPoint and PDF attachments, and edit Word and Excel files, too (although you need to do this through a third-party application).
The keys are very small — which should appeal especially to women. Of course men can use it too, but I can see the full 26-key keyboard of earlier models to continue its appeal to the larger male fingers. And this is precisely what RIM expects of the Pearl: That it sheds RIM's reputation as a road-warrior cellphone and wins the consumer market.
(The last time RIM tried to woo the consumer market was two years ago with the BlackBerry 7100, which met with a notable lack of success, mostly because it was quite bulky, and its limited features made it look Spartan next to the competing Palm Treo.) And unlike some of Motorola's phones, the Pearl does not come in a variety of bright or even gaudy colours. Ultimately, the Pearl's appeal is that of a serious and understated (if attractive) communications tool, not an accessory.
