BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Cell Phone Review - Messaging

Part of the reason you buy a BlackBerry is for its excellent email client. True to form, the Pearl will support POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts. All you need to do to setup an email account for a popular service like Gmail or Yahoo! Email is to type in your email address and password. It will configure them for you.

Push Email (4.0)
The Pearl also supports BlackBerry's own brand of push email via their Internet Solution or Enterprise Solution. As suggested by their names, the former is for individuals and the latter is for companies.

Multiple E-mail Accounts (10.0)
The Pearl can keep tabs on up to 10 email accounts. We're not sure who would need this many, but we're sure some prolific emailer out there can make use of them all.

HTML and Attachments (2.0)
The e-mail client won’t support HTML-encoded messages. This support is becoming more standard amongst advanced devices, and we’re surprised this round of updates didn’t reflect that trend. All our test attachments could be viewed easily (Word, Excel, PDF, Powerpoint and Zip files).

E-mail Customizations (2.0)
The Pearl doesn’t provide many options for email customizing. Font still can’t be changed, which is a functionality hole BlackBerry could stand to fill in. Apparently it isn’t professional to send emails in a giant blue Comic Sans. Outgoing email signatures are really the only option for customization. 

Time to a New Message (16.36)

We were able to create a new message in a mere 1.22 seconds with the Pearl. This is fast. All that’s necessary is a flick of the trackball to highlight the proper inbox and three clicks to open up the new message dialogue.

One thing to keep in mind is that, since the cursor stays where you last positioned it, the time it takes to get to a new message will vary. On the whole, however, it will take a bit longer to open a blank email on the Pearl than on typical BlackBerry devices. The reason lies in the default icon arrangement which, thankfully, can be changed. On handsets like the Curve and the 8820, the first icon is the universal inbox, while on this phone it’s a shortcut to phone setup. This means quickly flicking the trackball until the cursor gets nestled in the top left corner won’t work any more; an additional, careful scroll one icon to the right is necessary. This adds a small amount of navigation time, but it’s not as convenient.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Pearl 8130	1.22	16.39
Palm Centro	1.86	10.75
HTC Tilt	6.45	3.10
Sidekick LX	2.22	9.01
BlackBerry Curve 8320	1.7	11.76
Nokia N73	5.2	3.85

E-mail Usability (11.0)
E-mail is just as usable on the Pearl as it is on any other BlackBerry. Every email account gets its own inbox icon in the main menu and are added to the communal inbox as well. Scrolling through emails is, as per usual, very easy to do with the trackball. Just in case it isn’t fast enough for you, space will jump down a page, and shift + scroll will jump to the start or end of the list. Selecting multiple emails is as easy as holding down the pound key while scrolling.

Supported IM Services (1.0)
The Pearl only comes with BlackBerry's proprietary messenger installed. This program can send IMs to other BlackBerry owners for free. Since the phone is very extensible, if there’s another IM client out there you’d prefer, you’re free to download and install it. Most major IM clients have BlackBerry compatible versions.

MMS Support (6.0)
MMS capabilities have been inconsistent through BlackBerry’s lineup of handsets. Fortunately for the Pearl, it takes after the Curve family as opposed to the 8800 family. MMS support is support as well as it can be without being fully integrated into SMS messaging. Both types of messages share an inbox, and MMS messages can be sent from any form of capture or their respective albums. Again, the only place you can’t create an MMS message from easily is once you’ve started an SMS message.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
The Pearl doesn’t endorse the simple joys of small yellow faces.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (6.0)
Texting uses the same inbox setup as email. A new SMS message is handled slightly different than a new email, however. Assuming you’re creating a new text from the inbox, the recipient must be chosen from the onset. The rest of the process is straightforward.

Time to a New SMS Message (2.09)
The Pearl took 4.78 seconds to open up a new SMS message, which is uncharacteristically slow for a BlackBerry device, and slow for handsets in general. The reason for this delay is twofold. First of all, it requires a bit of menu navigation to find the option. Once you do, you have to choose a recipient before you actually get to the new SMS dialogue. Regardless, we’d have expected a far quicker time from a BlackBerry.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Pearl 8130	4.78	2.09
Palm Centro	0.86	11.63
HTC Tilt	0.79	12.66
Sidekick LX	1.86	5.38
BlackBerry Curve 8320	4.22	2.37
Nokia N73	4.28	2.34

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