Cell Phone Reviews: The New Blackberry Pearl 9100

Posted by Geronimo Boosh on June 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment

You are sure to find dynamite comes in small packages with the Blackberry Pearl 9100. This is the new replacement from Research In Motion for the 8100 and it does a fine job. Take a closer look at how technology can add to the value of an already nice cell phone.

Blackberrys usually come in basic shapes and sizes and follow logical steps in advancement. The Blackberry Pearl 9100 is one such device. It is about the same size as its forebears, but has more to offer. The size is small, nearly small enough to forget you have it in your pocket. It is 4.25 inches tall by just under two inches wide (1.96 inches ). It is just a tad over half an inch thick. It is a flyweight at 3.3 ounces ( 94 grams ).

Blackberry phones and the Blackberry Pearl 9100 are made to high quality standards. The screen has a high resolution for its size and is crisp and bright. The numbers for the resolution are 360 by 400 pixels. It is a whopping 2.3 inches in size. If you are looking to view tons of videos or web pages, this small screen may be giving you some headaches. Under the screen is the manual twenty-key keyboard. It has a special name; “Suretype”. The raised letters have a special pyramid shape that helps during typing. The upgrade you get for this 9100 model is the optical trackpad instead of a trackball. Trackballs hold lint and dust, so now you can say goodbye to that problem.

On the back of the Pearl 9100 is the camera, the battery cover, and the LED photo flash. The camera has a resolution of 3.2 megapixels and includes autofocus and geo tagging. It supports video and the maximum length of a video is the maximum amount of memory left on the 9100. Some limit you to around ten or fifteen minutes, but not this phone. There is no FM radio or secondary camera included with the Blackberry Pearl 9100.

Total memory on the inside of the Pearl is 256 megabytes. Research In Motion provides a free two gigabyte Micro SD card with the 9100, but you can install a card up to 32 gigabytes in size. The connectivity of the little Pearl is impressive. It even has the speedy “N” mode of Wi-Fi. WiMaX is not included yet. For voice, it uses quad band GSM networks and tri band networks on 3G ( HSDPA ).

The Pearl 9100 has a fast processor that prevent waiting for it to “do something” after you tell it to. It is 624 megahertz processor, which is fast for something that is the size of the 9100. The battery is also big enough to give five and a half hours of talk time on a 2G network. 3G networks are half an hour less. This 9100 model has a close cousin in the 9105, which is also released. The difference in the two is the manual keyboards. Overall, this is a needed update from an older Blackberry model and should continue the Research In Motion reputation of reliable and affordable devices.