Review: Blackberry Pearl 8120 from T-Mobile
- April 19th, 2008
- 5 Comments
Here we go again: another Blackberry product with UMA from T-Mobile. If you travel at all, you need UMA on T-Mobile. Straight up. Say what you want about your Samsung Ace with SIM card slot. That’s weak sauce compared to a phone that works at any hotspot worldwide.
The 8120 is an updated Pearl with improved keyboard and Hotspot@Home support. Hotspot@Home is a $10/month service that allows you to make unlimited national calls over a hotspot, which is presumably found in your home. However, because H@H works anywhere in the world, you’ve really got the ultimate roaming phone.
I’m not a big fan of the Pearl. Once you get used to the predictive-text keyboard, you’ll be fine. However, I prefer the large keyboards found on other Blackberry products. However, if you’re looking for a fairly usable candy bar phone that doesn’t look like a bloated skatefish, you might be in the running for this model.
The 8120’s battery life is severely curtailed by Wi-Fi. Without Wi-Fi on, it lasted for about three days on one charge. With Wi-Fi on that plummeted to about 18 hours at best, with the battery bar falling slowly over time. RIM has improved Internet access on this model and it’s seamless and quite fast. Once you’re connected, you’re ready to make and take calls. You must, however, look for the little UMA logo in the corner to confirm that you are using the Wi-Fi network.
Compared to the older Pearl, this version is a bit peppier and looks great. The keys sort of “melt” around the trackball in a way the original Pearl tried to emulate and it’s slightly lighter. It also has a 2-megapixel camera and stereo Bluetooth.
While I have to recommend the curve over the 8120, this phone is still a good casual email phone and powerful roaming phone. It’s $149 after rebate and has enough tweaks to recommend it over the older version.
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/Detail.aspx?device=089ad2a0-4976-44b4-957f-29937cad4990
dwalk51 (Who am I?)
5 months ago
I have a question. My friend tells me that he say one of these just the other day and it did indeed have video recording, unlike my pearl, which is stuck to mere pictures. Does this phone have video recording? thanks
Blackberry Fan
5 months ago
Yes, it does have video recording. Video recording is also available on the T-Mobile curve 8320 but only if you have the latest operating system 4.5 installed, this is officially not launched yet, however, it has been leaked out to the internet. T-Mobile and RIM both Rock!!!
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Blackberry Fan
5 months ago
BTW, the network for Hotspot @home is provided by Alcatel (not Kineto who claims to own the technology).
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Wayne Schulz (Who am I?)
5 months ago
I have the 8320 on T-Mo and have been using it for a good 6 months as my main phone. The WIFI works incredibly well. It’s simply amazing that the technology works exactly as T-Mobile describes.
In the office I would up buying a T-Mobile router because my older Linksys appeared to lack some technology that would enable it to carry voice conversations.
Now here’s the deep dark secret to both the 8320 and 8120….
In my experience T-Mobile has the skimpiest coverage of all the carriers. In major cities you’ll never notice the problem. But as soon as you move to the fringes, if you enter an area that is relatively desolate, you’ll see that T-Mobile is usually the carrier that has NO coverage.
So while the WIFI connection is awesome — it cannot totally compensate for the weaker native T-Mobile network. Because you won’t have WIFI in your car or at the kids’ soccer games - you’ll be cursing the scarse native T-Mobile cellular footprint.
If you can live with the limitations of T-Mobiles native signal then the H@H service rocks.
Lori (Who am I?)
5 months ago
I was told you could surf the web with the WiFi on this model WITHOUT paying a monthly internet service fee - that it was like taking a laptop with you and just signing on. That the WiFI is not just for calls. Is this true? And what is the voice/sound quality like on this phone? Many thanks for any info!