| Review of the Blackberry Pearl Flip |
 |
The Pearl Flip is a variation on the popular Blackberry Pearl line (so named because of its use of a pearlescent thumb wheel for navigation). Unlike most Blackberries, which are candy bar style, this is a flip model. This is only a 2G GSM phone, and so it doesn’t support UMTS voice, nor does it support 3G data. It does support EDGE, but if email is your primary use of data, then the speed of EDGE shouldn’t be a major issue.
Available at Rogers. Last Updated: 30-Aug-2009 |
Before reading this review, please read Some Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
RF Performance
Click on this link for a full description of
RF Performance, and how to interpret it.
RF Sensitivity: (A+)
This is one category in which the Pearl shines (pun intended). The Pearl can
pick up 2G signals as well as, if not better, than just about any 2G phone I’ve
tested. I compared the Pearl against my old Nokia
6310i, which for quite some time was among the most sensitive GSM phones on
the market prior to the introduction of 3G. The Pearl doesn’t exactly put the
6310i to shame, but it certainly out-performs it. If there’s even a hint of a 2G
signal, the Pearl will pull it in.
Over-the-road Performance:
(A+) As a 2G phone the Pearl must deal with the dreaded hard handoff.
When a hard handoff occurs on the old 2G GSM network the call must be moved to a
different physical channel, which always results in some type of interruption in
the audio stream. I’ve tested phones that do a very poor job of this, and I’ve
also tested phones that have very tame handoffs (the most recent being the
Motorola W233). However, absolutely none of
them compare to the Pearl for the sheer smoothness and unobtrusiveness of its
handoffs. The Pearl may very well have the best over-the-road performance of any
2G GSM phone I’ve ever tested.
Audio Performance
Click on this link for a full description of
Audio Performance, and how to interpret it.
Tonal Balance: (C+)
I’d rather expected this aspect of the phone to very good to excellent, based on
my experiences with Blackberries in the past. However, the tonal balance of this
phone is only average. That is to say it’s good, but nothing to write home
about. It doesn’t sound overly harsh or muddy, but one would hardly describe it
as crisp either.
Sound Reproduction: (D)
Now we get to the bad news. It’s been quite some time since I’ve tested a phone
with such an obvious distortion problem. As is always the case, the phone might
have been faulty, but with only one example of the Pearl to base my comments on,
I have to assume this one is representative of the line. Surprisingly I got a
chance to quickly try out a second Pearl Flip during the test period and it was
sadly very similar in this regard.
The distortion is mostly dependent upon earpiece volume, because the louder it
gets, the worse the distortion sounds. Voices are still distinct enough that you
won’t find yourself asking your callers to repeat themselves, but sound
reproduction is just not that good on the Pearl Flip.
Earpiece Volume: (B)
The phone can generate a generous amount of earpiece volume, and in this respect
it gets good marks. However, volume comes at a price, as I noted above. The
louder the earpiece volume, the more pronounced the distortion.
Outgoing Audio: (B-)
Because this is a flip model, I expected it to do a better-than-average job of
blanking out the background noise in harsh environments (such as the crowded
food court over at Square One). It did block the background noise well, but it
takes its toll on the outgoing voice quality. As the background noise increases,
the voice quality becomes decidedly nasal. Whatever noise-cancellation
technology RIM is using in this phone damages the wanted audio in the process. I
decided to give it a B- grade because the audio quality is actually quite good
when the phone is used in a quiet environment.
Speakerphone: (C-) The
volume of the speakerphone is acceptable, but the overall quality of the sound
is rather poor. It’s excessively tinny and somewhat distorted. You could
certainly use this speakerphone to carry on a normal conversation, but chances
are you’ll probably prefer not to. This is a very disappointing speakerphone
implementation.
Support Features
Ringer Volume: (B+) I
was unable to upload my Loud Ring.mp file to
the Pearl because the Mass Storage feature didn’t work correctly without the
installation of driver software (which I didn’t have). I therefore tested the
ringer volume using the ringers available on the phone natively. Surprisingly
they were quite loud, though not as loud as other phones I’ve tested. They were
however loud enough to warrant a B+ grade for this aspect of performance.
Keypad Design: (B) I
simultaneously liked and disliked this keypad design. On one hand it has a
wonder feel and excellent tactile feedback. On the other hand it has flush keys,
which I’ve complained about often in other reviews. The problem with flush keys
is that you simply cannot operate the keypad effectively without looking at.
Some of this problem is mitigated by the large size of the keys. So long as I
looked at it however, key-press accuracy was excellent.
Display: (A-) The
2.6-inch 320 x 240 display on the Pearl produces excellent images, but it’s
limited to 65,000 colors. This is really only important for displaying pictures,
and so for most people the colors limitation is irrelevant. The screen is quite
bright and can be seen in direct sunlight (though not especially well).
Icing on the
Cake
Camera: (C+) The camera is a 2 megapixel
unit that provides below-average picture quality, especially in low-light
conditions. You could use this to take real photos, but it seems to exist mostly
to take low-res shows to send to others via email or MMS.
Navigation: (B+) The feature that gives this phone
its name is the pearl-colored ball that acts like a tiny trackball. Unlike the
large pool-ball-sized trackballs used on computers however, this one is small
and is moved with your thumb. I found that it did its job exceptionally well,
though it seemed to be a bit fast. Possibly there are ways to adjust the
response speed of the ball, but I didn’t delve deeply enough into the operating
system to find out if that was the case. Even if there isn’t, the execution is
still quite good.
Response Speed: (F)
This is a category I’ve never included in a review before, because I’ve never
encountered a phone where it was even necessary. The Pearl Flip can only be
described as extremely sluggish. It is so sluggish in fact that I thought there
was something wrong with it. I therefore looked at other reviews of the phone
and I found this to be a commonly-mentioned issue.
When keys are pressed to dial a phone number for example, you can practically
dial the next 2 or 3 digits before the first one even appears on the screen. If
you press keys to send touchtones you can literally feel time drag as you wait
for the tone to come out of the earpiece or speaker. In addition to that, just
about everything else in the phone seems slow too. Loading pictures that you
took with the camera is excruciatingly slow, as is any attempt to scroll the
picture if you are foolhardy enough to zoom in on in.
Quite honestly the extremely slow speed of this phone is a real shock. I’ve
tested all manner of low-end phones and none have ever been sluggish enough to
be really annoyed by. This one aspect alone put me off the phone completely, and
so I strongly recommend that if you plan to buy one that you check this out for
yourself before you put down your money.
RIM clearly understood this, because when you turn off the phone, you’d don’t
really turn it off. Instead you put it into a kinds sleep mode that allows it to
spring back to life almost instantly when you turn the phone on again. However,
heaven help you if you pull the battery. It takes almost 3 to 4 minutes for the
phone to do whatever it does to perform a cold start. I was rather shocked by
the length of time, and it made testing the phone (where I needed to frequently
pull the battery to get my SIM out so I could put it in other phones) very
difficult.
Conclusions
In a few limited respects, such
as the excellent RF performance (which is virtually without peer) and excellent
screen the Pearl might seem like a good choice. However, it is mediocre or poor
in just too many ways. The distortion of the incoming the audio, the
mind-numbing slowness of the operating system, the below-average outgoing audio
(when there’s background noise present), the so-so speakerphone implementation,
and the poor camera quality make for a rather disappointing phone. I can only
assume that this model sells almost purely on the Blackberry reputation, because
I couldn’t personally see anyone seriously accepting such debilitating
limitations if they knew about them going in.
I was very surprised when I discovered these weaknesses, because my experience
with Blackberries in the past has been so positive. I don’t know what possessed
RIM to release a phone like this, but do yourself a favor and steer clear. If
you must have a Blackberry, buy a different model, though the only other one of
recent vintage that I can personally attest to is the
Bold, to which I gave a fairly good review.
However, the Bold is in a complete different price class and it wouldn’t be a
suitable substitute for someone interested in the Pearl Flip. If it’s the flip
you want the phone for, RIM offers no real alternative to you.
