Pearl of wisdom

December 2 2006

As Ben Rose said to me yesterday, "the world must be coming to an end!"  After a visit with vowe, borrowing from Buchan, banter with Ben, and jealousy with John.... I am in the process of acquiring a Blackberry Pearl. Beautiful design, lightweight and small, easy to use.

But.

I am not connecting it to my IBM mailbox.  (I heard your "for now!")

I know myself too well, and I do not intend to need one of those Crackberry helmets.  I had 92 new e-mails waiting @ work when I arrived home from Zürich the other night...and it was far more important to spend time with my daughter than rolling a little trackball in an electronic candybar.  My own personality being what it is, I just need to avoid the temptation, rather than the usual "well you can turn it off!" response I get from Blackberry addicts.

I'm keeping my old phone nearby, too, in case of overdose.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Blackberry Pearl  Add/View Comments [28]

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  1. 1  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 12/2/2006 8:11:38 AM

    LOL! OK Ed, this is getting scary. I bought a Pearl last Monday! The screen is great. I've yet to synch it to Notes. Unlike Bill's report, I am finding the battery life a bit depressing. I have yet to get more than a day or two, and I make very few calls. Maybe my battery is bad, or maybe it is the Texas Hold'em game I downloaded. I'd like to create folders on the desktop so I can group applications, I've yet to figure out how. I'd like a (free) stop watch, timer, and world clock.

  1. 2  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 12/2/2006 10:01:47 AM

    It IS the game. You may also notice that it is draining your bank account. :-)

  1. 3  Nathan T. Freeman http://www.openntf.org/nathan/escape.nsf | 12/2/2006 10:37:11 AM

    Yeah, that Hold 'Em games has been killing my battery life, too.

  1. 4  Fuat Baran  | 12/2/2006 10:45:08 AM

    I have an earlier model, the 7100t with T-Mobile service. I love the email service and client, which is why I got it. I don't have it linked to my work mail, but to my personal mail account, with an extensive filter to sort which messages make it through. Sadly, in the past week or so, the direct address to my blackberry (xxx@tmo.blackberry.net) which I have only given out to 2-3 people, has gotten on spam lists and I am getting 2-3 spams a day.

    Prior to the Blackberry I had a Palm and much prefer the Palm touchscreen GUI for other applications, but Blackberry mail is a winner.

  1. 5  Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 12/2/2006 1:28:15 PM

    Cool....I'm planning to get one soon as well, now that Cingular has them (the only carrier that works in my Vegas 'burb). But now they have the Samsung Blackjack too, which I hear works with Blackberry mail too. Same price after discounts....decisions, decisons....

  1. 6  Karen Demerly  | 12/2/2006 7:12:27 PM

    Stay strong, man. You are on the right path, just STAY STRONG.

  1. 7  Alexander Kluge http://www.kluge.de | 12/3/2006 6:22:56 AM

    Go and get the Pearl. I have it since one week, and its the best Smartphone I had so far. And I realy refused to have a Blackberry device the last years because I was so Palm addicted...

  1. 8  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 12/3/2006 7:06:51 AM

    Enjoy the Pearl Ed! I have been testing a Blackjack since last week. I am digging it - I like the keyboard and you can set it up to retrieve email. There is a mail "client" for the desktop, but it won't stay connected to Cingular's servers and the client dies if I choose the "Lotus Domino" option. I'm working with Cingular on that.

    By the way, the Blackjack does NOT work with BES. RIM has a BB Connect client for WM5 devices, but they have not released it for use.

  1. 9  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 12/3/2006 9:32:11 AM

    I'm typing from my Pearl right now. Having moved from a Treo600, I gotta say, this is the coolest thing ever. The BES is a complicated server to set up, & there are enough steps in registering a new device & all that, but once it's going, it never stops. As far as battery life goes, I never understood the whole Texas hold'em business, & don't play. My battery life rules. I can even play MP3s all day long while surfing the net and still have half a charge when I get home. Charges fast too. Enjoy.

  1. 10  Kurt B http://www.onthehoist.com | 12/3/2006 10:05:00 AM

    Dear all: The Pearl is a great consumer device. Using it for enterprise computing is the equivalent of using Outlook Express ;-)

    The 8700 will be next.

    (Blackberry zealot speaking..)

  1. 11  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 12/3/2006 11:14:34 AM

    Chris, I have BB Connect on a Treo 750V Windows Mobile 5 device. There are also other versions available. Maybe not for your device though.

  1. 12  Ted Stanton http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/InsideLotus | 12/3/2006 12:46:27 PM

    If your not going to synch it for mail and calendar, what was your decision to go with a Pearl? What does the Pearl provide that other devices (RIM, Palm, Treo) don't?

    Im in the market to upgrade my BB 7250 but tough finding a good reason.

  1. 13  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 12/3/2006 1:06:14 PM

    Kurt, can you explain why you think so? I think the email and calendar system on the Pearl is rather cool. How are the PIM apps (or any other for that matter) different from the less sexy blackberries?

  1. 14  Flemming Riis  | 12/3/2006 1:44:38 PM

    personally i think the blackberry makes medicore phones, if you dont connect them to a mailserver i would prefeer a real phone instead.

    8700 mixed with a nokia for phone is still my prefeered pim+voice mix.

  1. 15  Kurt B http://www.onthehoist.com | 12/3/2006 8:07:23 PM

    @13

    Small screen and having to doubletap the keyboard is a dealbreaker and not hooking it into a BES server strips it of most of its value beyond being a consumer device in my opinion.

    On my 8700 I

    -receive server events from our monitoring system

    -can reboot servers and can even create users from just about anywhere

    -take meeting notes that sync automatically to my personal journal

    -use Google maps including directions

    -Read email attachments

    -Retrieve RSS content

    -Surf the web

    -Surf our intranet

    -Use custom apps to read from / write to Notes databases

    -Access our WSE portal

    -receive real-time calendar updates

    -use mail/calandering

    The Pearl is a device of the type RIM said it would never make.

  1. 16  Fuat Baran  | 12/3/2006 8:24:19 PM

    @15:

    Hmm. I thought it had the same features as the other Blackberries and was usable with a corporate BES...

    It can deal with attachments. I have "Google Local" for my 7100t (predecessor of the Pearl), can surf the web, etc.

    The keyboard is not "double tap". Two letters per key, but a single tap is usually sufficient. It figures out which letter you meant from context (usually).

  1. 17  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 12/3/2006 9:38:27 PM

    @15 - Um, the Pearl connects to BES just fine .. both for PIM data and for applications ...

    everything you just mentioned that you have on you 8700 I have on my pearl. You need to go back and look at the device

  1. 18  Bruce Elgort http://www.TakingNotesPodcast.com | 12/3/2006 10:49:42 PM

    Man I wish I could have a Pearl. I am stuck on Nextel and the best Nextel has for Blackberries is an 7100i. Good luck with your new tech toy.

  1. 19  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 12/3/2006 10:57:24 PM

    @16, @17: Guys, I think Kurt's point is that he thinks the Pearl is a waste as a BIS device. Ed said up top that he isn't going to hook it up to the IBM BES servers. Kurt never said the Pearl couldn't connect to a BES, he said that without connecting it to a BES he didn't see the point.

    Now, since I bought a Pearl the other day (well, actually TMobile paid me a penny to take it...) and am configuring it the same way Ed is, I obviously don't agree...

  1. 20  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 12/4/2006 6:32:07 AM

    Volker, from the reading I did at blackberryforums.com the concensus was that BBConnect didn't work on WM5. From what I understood from there, this was more of a restriction from the carriers over here like Cingular. The ones who did acknowledge having BBC for WM5 stated that you might be able to "hack" the BBC software onto the Blackjack via the registry, but someone was unsuccessful at that.

    I think the Pearl is a great move for RIM. They have made a device that three "techies" here (Ed, Bruce and Rob) actually want to have - even without corporate e-mail. And they could easily get their gmail accounts through the BIS. It's a wise move for people to get Blackberrys (? - do you use "ies" for a product name?) who may not have wanted one in the past for whatever reason.

  1. 21  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 12/4/2006 7:31:41 AM

    Chris, whatever you read on bbforums - The Treo 750v _IS_ a WM5 device, and you can find the _OFFICIAL_ download here: { Link } At least one of the VPAs listed there is also a WM5 device.

  1. 22  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 12/4/2006 8:02:44 AM

    Volker - thanks for the info... :)

  1. 23  Pete McPhedran  | 12/4/2006 9:17:13 AM

    Congrats Ed,

    Yet another convert, whether you use BES, BIS, or neither, I am sure you will like the Pearl. I think it has been alluded to here, that the Perl, in it's current form (8100), is a "prosumer" device, it was not intended to be bought by the corporate set that wants mobile email and a phone too. It was specifically designed to get into the hands of those without a BES.

    Late January maybe into February, the next generation Pearl will be released and it will be the blending of an 8100 with an 8700. Basically the current Pearl with a full sized keyboard, minus the camera.

    If you don't have/get a data plan with your device, you may want to reconsider that, BBMaps is a really cool app, when combined with a cheap bluetooth GPS device, it makes for a powerful mobile handset. With all the travel that you do, I think you would enjoy it.

    --Pete

  1. 24  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/4/2006 10:06:41 AM

    I'm not so crazy about BES myself. We keep having random users getting old e-mail redelivered and they're constantly screaming at us and it's driving us crazy. I haven't tried anything else, but my experience with BES has been that it's unreliable.

  1. 25  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 12/4/2006 10:20:17 AM

    @24

    I don't usually like to slam a Domino Server supporting company, but I was never able to get the CommonTime sync to work properly with my Treo. And their support is terrible. RIM, by comparison is phenomenal, and the BES server doesn't seem to have any more quirks than any other enormous application I've ever seen.

    To each their own, I guess.

  1. 26  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 12/4/2006 10:24:36 AM

    @15

    Kurt, I hate to break it to you, but I can do all those things, and with great comfort. The double-tap is only if you don't like the SureType (which I HATE, incidentally), but given the form-factor (which I LOVE) it's a REALLY small price to pay to be able to slip this little sucker in your pocket instead of managing a giant brick, be it a Treo, or the BIZ-style blackberries. I'd give it another look.

  1. 27  Kurt B http://www.onthehoist.com | 12/4/2006 2:18:16 PM

    Wow

    Nice to see there are so many Blackberry fans/users out there.

    Just to clarify, I never said it couldn't be hooked into a BES server. I said that not doing so stripped it of its capabilities.