I have before me a Blackberry Pearl from Cingular and a TeleNav GPS Receiver. Individually, the Pearl is one of the most desirable phones on the market. Packed within its ultra-svelte casing are some genuinely dynamic features.
Although it’s small and attractive, it maintains Blackberry’s acclaimed productivity suite. I’ve used plenty of smartphones and I continue to find something incredibly appealing about Blackberry. It might not have every single feature that WinMo phones have, but what features it has, it does flawlessly and I’m left to wonder whether additional features are truly necessary. Indeed, the Pearl does essentially everything I could ask of it.
One of the few drawbacks of the PEARL is its lack of a QWERTY keyboard—granted that’s also one of its biggest advantages. Nevertheless, the Pearl integrates RIM’s SureType technology creating the best typing experience I’ve ever experienced with a standard phone keypad. It’s not quite as quick as a QWERTY, but it’s damn close.
My calling experience was extremely positive. It received excellent reception throughout New Orleans and seldom succumbed to interference or dropped call shenanigans.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Pearl is its setup and interface. The phone uses the standard Blackberry screen where all programs and are laid out on the main screen. It’s so incredibly convenient that I question why not all phones are setup like this. There is no need to click through 100 screens just to get somewhere because everything is laid bare in front. The Pearl uses a scroll ball which is a progressive and attractive addition to a device of this nature. The ball reduces time and effort by allowing you to operate the phone quickly with one hand, even permitting you to scroll diagonal through menus and such. Cool stuff.
The other major drawback of the Pearl is that it only has EDGE. I’ve bemoaned and besmeared EDGE on more occasions than I can count and believe its worth every shred of my negativity. I’ve never achieved anything I would consider “mobile broadband” with an EDGE enabled device and this one isn’t really much different. Browsing the web is still utterly slow, but given the sum of all the Pearl’s positives I find difficult to besmirch on account of a sub-par wireless technology. The EDGE actually performed well for email and such, which is what Blackberry’s are mainly about.
. The receiver will communicate happily with your phone from a bag or pocket.</p>
<p>It seems like something like this would be a lifesaver for the directionally-retarded (my mother). The system allows you to pinpoint locations and to mark favorite locations. What this means is that if you’re standing at a place that you frequent, just call up the TeleNav program and set it as a favorite location. It’ll pinpoint your GPS locale and store it on the phone. Then if you ever want to know how to get to one of your favorite places from someplace else, simply goto the GPS Navigation screen and click on favorites. Select the location you’re trying to get to and after a short compile time, it’ll give you turn-by-turn directions to your favorite location. Exceedingly cool stuff.</p>
<p>As an experiment I allowed TeleNav to guide me to various locations in New Orleans (a city that I could navigate blindfolded). In more than one occasion it was able to reduce my travel time by setting me on streets that I wouldn’t have otherwise taken. Never once did it misdirect me or attempt to send me into the river or something else equally disagreeable.</p>
<p>The device works simply enough. After you’ve subscribed to the service there is a small program that you must download to your mobile phone. You then pair the receiver to your phone via Bluetooth and open the program. The rest is even easier. All of the functions are laid out with obvious buttons and everything functions quite seamlessly.<img class=)
So if it isn’t clear to this point, my experience using the Blackberry Pearl from Cingular and the TeleNav GPS Receiver in tandem was extremely positive. The intuitive device and service make this a winner for essentially anyone. This would be particularly useful for anyone who moves around a city a lot during the day. New Orleans is so small and familiar to me that I’m sure I didn’t realize the full potential of this setup. I’m quite excited to give it a try during one of my forthcoming trips (San Francisco next, then Austin, Chicago, New York, etc.) as I know it will completely change the way I move around those less familiar cities. I plan to follow-up on these devices as I travel, so I’ll give you all some updates in the next month or so.
The Blackberry Pearl is available now through Cingular (and T-Mo) for $199.99 with the standard two year and a $50 mail in rebate—or you can get it for $399.99 outright. The TeleNav GPS Receiver is available through TeleNav and cellular providers for $99. It then requires a monthly subscription. For instance, with Cingular you can get 10 routes a month for $5.99 or, the much better option, unlimited routes for $9.99. Also, if your phone has a built in GPS chip, you don’t have to get the receiver.
Based on the selling-points, ease of use and overall attractiveness and ingenuity of these devices I’m giving them a Best Bytes rating. Quite pleased really.
I played with my friend’s new pearl over the weekend (in white) and I was pleasantly surprised. It is much sleeker feeling than I thought it was going to be from pics and the interface is rather smooth. Good feature set as well, and looked great in white.
I have had my pearl for some time and agree with above, but I have been using Wisepilot instead of Telenav as navigation. The pearl goes very well with gps navigation softwares I must say, much better then the 8707 which was slow. Checkout Wisepilot at http://www.wisepilot.com!
“if your phone has a built in GPS chip, you don’t have to get the receiver.”
What exactly does this mean? Do some of them have a built in GPS chip, while others don’t? How do you tell?
SureType is really frustrating. I had a Blackberry for over a year and it was so annoying that I finally switched to a full-sized keyboard when my company refreshed it.
The bonus of a larger screen was a nice addition to upgrading the keyboard.
I found that the process of transferring and setting up a new Blackberry was amazingly easy – yet another basic thing that RIM does well.
Suretype is great your crazy
I have installed Telenav on my Blackberry Pearl and it has taken what I have considered to be a fantastic mobile device to a phenomenal one! As a frequent traveller to many cities throughout the US, this mobile combination has definately made my life easy.
I have a BB 7100 and found that Suretype is hard to get use too.
As to the question about the GPS chip, Sprint offers the BB 8703e that comes with a GPS chip.
From what I have been able to read on Telenav’s web site, you have to purchase a Bluetooth GPS unit that will communicate with the phone.
I see it as something else to keep up with and feed it batteries. I travel and rent vehicles and the less stuff I have to carry the better.
Does anyone know how can I check if my Pearl has GPS chip? I tried to turn on “location based services” but nothing happened.
Thanks
None of the 8100s shipped with a GPS chip.
Question:
Will my t-mobile rezar phone work with your gps system?
RSVP, Tom
Hello! Even if I pay the $199 for 2-year TELENAV service, will I still have to pay Cingular the $9.99 a month for unlimited routes?
So my Pearl doesnt have a chip I hear..ok So where can I find a GPS reciever? Thanks
I have a gps receiver for a blackberry pearl that i’m not using. It also comes with the regular charger and a car charger. Let me know if your interested in it.
I’m interested!!!!
It is absolutely OUTRAGEOUS that your phone company demands money for maps or routes. This is a major ripoff. It’s as bad as “locking” your phone to their service. Check into the HTC P3600. No external GPS receiver necessary and you can load all your maps onto the memory card. Pay for maps once. At 9.99 a month, you will likely have the maps pay for themselves in less than a year. If you use your GPS as much as I do, even sooner. Also, you get wifi, a camera, and Windows mobile which means Word docs, Excel, etc. It has a decently-sized touch screen and the software for GPS is more flexible. Come on folks…
First off Thomas must be retarded to like that over a BB. A BB can load excel, word and other docs without trouble.
I am getting ready to release a new iPhone that will doom the Blackbery to extinction.
i have had my blackberry in red for a few days now and i love it, it used to be my husbands and then he decided he wanted and iphone so he got one and i upgrade to his pearl it is much different than the razors (all i have known) oh and we had GPS on it but it would go out all the time and piss me off
I have a gps receiver with the car charger for a blackberry pearl.
Let me know if your interested.
I bought a Pearl just two weeks ago, after using a Treo for nearly 3 years. So far, I’m very impressed. I’ve never used gps before, but it seems very simple and effective on the Blackberry. The usb modem link to my laptop is much easier to sync than the bluetooth on my Palm. Oddly, the link is noticably faster, even though I’m using the same Sprint network. The Pearl is a damn good media player, as well, so I just load up my micro sd card, plug in the stereo headset, and leave the mp3 player at home. The voice dialing required no setup or training, and works better than any I’ve ever used.
On the downside, the Pearl’s browser doesn’t come close to Palm’s, and the Pearl lacks pocket computer functions. The typing system is inscrutable, but I’ve found a way around that by using the decent voice recorder, and saving or emailing those files.
Still, I didn’t really use the office tools on my Palm that much (I have a laptop for that), and the Pearl is a very good communication device.
I’m still learing how to use all the features, but I’m pretty happy so far.
So i feel stupid asking this but how does one go about getting the gps navigation feature activated on there blackberry pearl phone? i just got mine today and they didnt say anything about me needing to subscribe to anything nor did they tell me that i would need a gps reciever to use it either…im so confused…someone please help…