The
BlackBerry Pearl 8100 was, and still is, a lovely little phone,
QWERTYfied, pocketable, and rocking that little milky trackball that gave it its name. There's finally a true successor coming down the pipeline (the flippy
8230 not really counting) though it ditches the iconic pearl for a now-standard (and hopefully
more reliable) touchpad. There's a similarly swoopy SureType keyboard and the overall dimensions look very much the same, meaning this should fill the tiny BlackBerry void once again -- whenever it ships.
Update: But of course the original 8100 also had SureType, not QWERTY.
[Thanks, Alex T]
posted November 20th 2009 6:54AM
8100 also didn't have a qwerty. The keyboard is the same as in this new (and gorgeous) 9100. Love it
I have to say, they sexyed up the pearl, and it's about damn time. Even though I don't use a pearl, but a lot of people love that phone so it's good to be refreshing it for the people out there who still use em.
@prewreckless
i looooooooooved the pearl, always thought it was a sexy blackberry making it more fashionable than previous berries. but this sleek all black look with the trackpad is by far much more gorgeous. i might be ditching my white e71 for this gem as soon as it comes out
the old pearl had a suretype keyboard as well.
@babbaganush
I'm thinking someone was confusing their Pearls and Curves maybe?
i don't want to go back to suretype, but wow that thing looks nice!
Ugly as expected.
how much unlocked?
When I first saw that picture, I thought it was a KIRF.
Liking the look of this. The will probably continue to sell a ton of these.
This looks really nice! I had the original 8100 for two years and loved it. This looks like a truly worthwhile successor. As much as I love and now prefer Android, I do sometimes miss my little Pearl. :-)
Pretty sure that the original Pearl always had SureType...
What the fuck is QUERTY anyway?
and yeah, the pearls have always had suretype...
I finally have a decent option for my kids phones. With the 9100 coming out the 8120s and 8110s are gonna be dirt cheap! YAY!
Actually, my kids should be saying "YAY"! :)
@Myk Dinis
Your kids get BlackBerries? When I went to highschool my mom gave me her old Nokia 3310 and $20 prepaid airtime. Which was supposed to last the year. :)
Its stupid not to buy them or have them buy a 9700 or 9630, as they are $30/mo per line, sooo you will end up paying $720 over two years for the data plan, so you may as well pay the extra $150 for a top-of-the-line 9700/9630 so that they can get the most out of that $720 plan. Personally, I'd get them something like an EnV Touch or texting phone on AT&T that doesn't have the $30/mo/line data plan on it.
On a family plan with sprint, after the first two lines each additional line is $20. So say mom and dad get blackberry tour's (or maybe mom wants a palm pre and dad wants a hero), they pay $130 a month for both phones. Little susie and james have been begging mom and day for phones, now that they are in high school, so mom and dad decide to buy them the discounted pearl 8130 for $30 and add two lines to their account for an additional $40 a month ($480/yr, $960 for 2yrs). That is not that much more money. The total cost averaged over 4 phones comes to a whopping $42.50/mo for 1500 mins unlimited texting, unlimited data (5gb), anymobile anytime, sprint navigation (telenav), sprint tv, nfl mobile, and nascar mobile. Not a bad deal.
P.S. Maybe dad gets a 20% discount from his job too...
My Pearl was my favorite phone I ever owned. It was reliable, took a beating and kept on ticking, and I didn't mind the Suretype keyboard. This looks like a fine successor to it. I switched to a Moment, and hopefully it will be as great as my Pearl ever was, and better.
I thought RIM was going to make another 9 thousand revisions to their existing Curve and its similar form-factor siblings before looking at the Pearl again. It's about damn time they updated the aging design and hardware.
I love my SureType keyboard - best compromise out there between a small size but still having a true physical keyboard (touchscreens suck).
I do hate the sound quality of my 8110 Pearl though, and while I live everything else about the phone, that primary function might keep me from getting another Pearl unless it is vastly improved.
Man, I've been waiting for a Pearl update for ages. It sucks that I'll probably have to wait even longer for a CDMA version.
@Hey Ya
This should be out in 2010 for all carriers (similar to the release of the 8520 and 8530), you shouldn't have to wait that long.
@trollnok
Sweet. I just discontinued use of my 8130. Looks like I know what my next Berry will be.
@Hey Ya
RIM in general seems to be good with getting GSM and CDMA phones out at the same time.
...though with Bell and Telus running HSPA+ now, I'm pretty sure the age of CDMA-based smartphones is drawing to a close. At least in Canada.
my iPhone died a month or so ago, and I was forced to go back to my old Pearl 8120. At first it was horrible, but other than the media player and the crappy navigation, the Pearl really is much, much better for day to day use (if you type a lot of emails/texts)....I definitely can't type 50 wpm on an iPhone.
oh ya, and the Pearl's browser sucks...that goes without saying
Well it is a blackberry... what did you expect? ;) This pearl should get the new webkit browser though, so hopefully over the life time of the device, the browsing experience will improve. This pearl should also be getting flash support.
I'd rather use a crappy touchscreen keyboard than have to deal with the frustrating nature of SureType's condensed QWERTY.
I share the opposite opinion. To each his own.
I don't know, SureType took me a (frustrating) week or so to get used to, but once I did, I could type very fast without even looking down...even with my fat thumbs. One year of the iPhone's keyboard proved far more infuriating, at least to me. But man, do I miss the iPhone's video/music player, navigation and web browser...hopefully the new Pearl makes some massive improvements in these areas.
OOOh the Pearl! This was my very first Blackberry ever; and once you go black, you never go back. Went from a Pearl to a Bold. I probably won't upgrade to the bold2 nor this new 9100pearl... however I'll wait for the uh... bold 3. Blackberries are so intuitive. I once had an airhead spoiled chick ask me why I chose to get a blackberry. She was like "my dad gets that and writes emails on it and stuff, why do you have it?"
I just ignored her dumb ass
Looks nice - let's hope it is rockin 3g!
Also, what gives with the new Engadget site not letting me login into my account from FireFox. I thought it was a fluke last night - but same thing this morning.
wit a decent cam + 3G this could/will be a sweet phone. good lool
I'm still using my 8100, love to try the new 9100 though.
How can it still be called a Pearl without a "pearl?"
The pearl has to be one of my favorite phones, the form factor and size are unbeatable. 95% of the time you can't beat suretype. They need to release an update for CDMA soon because the original Pearl just lacks the processing power to deal with any new applications!
It's definitely nicely designed, but I don't think I'd be choosing a Pearl over a Bold.
I had a Hero for 3 weeks and went back to my old Pearl, and i have not really looked back that much. The pearl has not been the most reliable for me(i am on 3rd) but i really like it. The browser... well its just about useless, but IMing, Texting, Emailing, its just fantastic.
RIM, please put enough RAM in it so i can utilize APP World! Just a few programs on the Pearl and i am out of space. I will upgrade as soon as it comes out, unless i am temped before then by another Android device!
And Rim if your reading this, why not have a Pearl size phone that slides or opens like those cheap texting phones on VZ and Sprint. Then you would have more room for a bigger screen. Might as well instead of releasing 20,000 Curves with slightly different accents and radios and giving them new names. ;-)
Omg!! YES! I HATE MY STORM! the pearl brings back so many memories.. hope its good