BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Cell Phone Review - Battery Life
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Mark Brezinski Published on December 18, 2007 Comment on this |
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Call Time (5.62)
The Pearl lasted for 4 hours and 41 minutes under the rigors of a never-ending conversation. This is slightly above average, but under par for a BlackBerry or a smart phone in general. Though this isn't a horrible time by any means, we expected a bit more from the Pearl.
We test call time by first ringing the test phone via Skype, our voice-over-internet protocol of choice. Once the call is established, we play sound clips over both ends of the call via HATS in order to simulate a conversation.
| Cell Phone | Talk Time | Score |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 4 hours, 41 minute | 5.62 |
| Palm Centro | 4 hours, 8 minutes | 4.96 |
| HTC Tilt | 5 hours | 6.00 |
| Sidekick LX | 5 hours, 36 minutes | 6.72 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 7 hours, 24 minutes | 8.88 |
| Nokia N73 | 7 hours, 48 minutes | 9.36 |
Music Playback (5.16)
Again, the Pearl puts forth average battery life. It lasted for 7 hours, 10 minutes of music playback. Typically phones will last between seven and nine hours, with higher-class devices lasting well over ten. Though it's at the bottom of the decent spectrum, it's still a good result. BlackBerry phones tend to receive really good battery scores, but it seems a bit of that was lost in the translation down to Pearl size.
We test music playback by setting our test album to repeat at maximum volume. We also close the phone if we can. Then we leave the phone in our lab, monitored by computers, and let it sing itself to sleep overnight.
| Cell Phone | Music Playback Time | Score |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 7 hours, 10 minute | 5.16 |
| Palm Centro | 6 hours, 47 minutes | 4.88 |
| HTC Tilt | 6 hours, 47 minutes | 4.88 |
| Sidekick LX | 10 hours, 4 minutes | 7.25 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 12 hours, 2 minutes | 8.66 |
| Nokia N73 | 9 hours, 51 minutes | 7.09 |
Web Browsing (5.60)
This score was a bit of a surprise given how poorly the Pearl did with music playback. Here the Pearl actually performed slightly above average. Its score certainly isn't quite worth celebrating, but typically music playback ekes out more bang for your battery life.
To test browsing time we navigate to a chain of sites that redirect to each other every ten seconds. We then set the phone's brightness to maximum, make sure the screen stays on and see how long the battery lasts.
| Cell Phone | Browsing Time | Score |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 4 hours, 40 minutes | 5.60 |
| Palm Centro | 4 hours, 22 minutes | 5.24 |
| HTC Tilt | 3 hours, 3 minutes | 3.66 |
| Sidekick LX | 8 hours, 54 minutes | 10.68 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 9 hours, 43 minutes | 11.66 |
| Nokia N73 | 4 hours, 6 minutes | 4.92 |
Idle Time unscored
We don't score idle time because it would take forever and we'd never finish reviews on time. Verizon claims the phone can live for 216 without a charge, so we'll believe them on this one.
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