The folks over at PureMobile.com sent us a BlackBerry Pearl Flip for review.

The first time the phone was turned on, it took nearly 1 minute, 35 seconds for the BlackBerry OS to boot up.. After navigating through the initial setup (language, date/time, and introduction to using the QWERTY keyboard on the Pearl), I finally reached the main screen.

The Phone

Let’s start with a phone call - from the main screen, I simply started dialing the numbers. Now I don’t know if there was an issue with this particular phone or it’s an issue with all Pearl Flips, there’s a definite delay between the time the key is pressed and the keypad tone is played back. It’s a minor thing, but for someone used to Nokia phones pretty much all my mobile life, it was kind of annoying.

The speaker on the phone was pretty crisp and clear, and the speakerphone was pretty great. In fact, the speakerphone is, arguably, better than most phones including the iPhone (on which it generally sucks). Build quality is rather nice, although when you keep it in your pocket, it seems a bit bulky - which is most likely because it’s a flip. As with the original Pearl, typing on the new-ish keyboard on the flip phone is something that old-school crackberries may have to adjust to.

Contacts

How long does it take to add a contact? At the minimum, a contact with a name and phone number takes approximately 4 minutes. Reason? Here are a few UI bloopers:

1. The dictionary seems to be turned on when adding the contact’s name. Which annoyingly pops up suggestions when I don’t want it to. Not everyone has a generic name, see.
2. When adding a contact, the order of the fields is as follows:
   • Title
   • First name
   • Last name
   • Picture
   • Company
   • Job Title
   • Email
   • Work phone (<– FINALLY); granted, the BlackBerry is primarily a business user’s phone. But look at the distance (in scrolling) between adding the contact’s name and phone number - it’s ridiculous! This is supposed to be a phone, damn it.

Text messaging

After the contact adding episode, I was hesitant to try sending a text SMS. Thankfully, this was simpler, although when in the ‘Compose an SMS’ screen, when I entered the recipient’s phone number (instead of selecting from a contact), it initially filled up junk characters but gave me the option to choose the number that I typed.

Synchronization

As always, sync works beautifully with the BlackBerry Desktop Manager - no questions asked. I was able to sync my contacts and email and the phone was up and running. It is also seamless to add and update your applications with the Desktop Manager.

Camera

Yes, the Pearl Flip has an on-board camera. It’s a 2 megapixel one, and not too great at that. Then again, you don’t want your mobile workforce to be clicking away at everything in sight, so it’s probably fine.

The Browser

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip comes with both a full-fledged browser and a WAP browser. I’m pretty sure you’d like to read more about the former, so here it goes. Now, T-Mobile’s EDGE network is not the best network out there, and the Pearl Flip does not support 3G, so that’s the best I could use for testing. The T-Mobile co-branded browser loads the default T-Mobile page, featuring a few news sources and Yahoo! search.

The column mode available on the browser lets you see the entire page in a single column, which is convenient at times. However the browser was nothing to write home about - it seemed sluggish, and things did not vastly improve when I switched to Wi-Fi. You’re better off with Opera on this one.

Business User

The Pearl Flip, despite its keyboard, is made for the business user like any other BlackBerry and therefore comes with support for adding various email accounts including POP3, IMAP, Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. IM client support is also pre-installed, with Yahoo Messenger, MSN Live Messenger, Google Talk and AIM on board.

Extras

The phone we received had a few games pre-installed, including Texas Hold’Em King 2, BrickBreaker and Sudoku. There was also the Facebook application for BlackBerry, which failed to load with a message from T-Mobile stating that “Your rate plan does not support this feature.” Obviously because I wasn’t on a BlackBerry data plan but a regular data plan.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked the phone - except for the boot up time. Plus, I am still not very comfortable with SureType but with a few more days of practice, it should come easy. No support for 3G means you would have to use Wi-Fi more often - draining your battery faster.

Whack Rating: 7.5/10

Buy the Blackberry Pearl 8220 Flip (unlocked) from PureMobile