BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 / Code Name Stratus Review

BlackBerry Pearl is one of the not-so-famous smartphone in the market. Unlike the mainstream type Bold 9700/9780, Curve 8520/9300 and Bold 9800, Pearl series is definitely having the least user of all BlackBerry.

I once used the 8100 and 8220 and for me, Pearl series suit me the best. It is sleek, tiny and fit comfortly in the jeans pocket :) BlackBerry 8100 and 8220 is now somewhat primitive, you can't use BlackBerry Messenger latest version (5 something something) in those devices. It will then only  displaying hourglasses over and over again. I don't know perhaps you still could use the ancient version (no display picture, no status), I haven't tried it.

But the point is compared to the latest Pearl before Stratus (its Kickstart), this 9100 is much much much much awesome. It's like Bold 9700 in smaller size. So it's a huge leap from the 82xx series.

The difference between the 9100 and 8100
Image courtesy of crackberry.com

Meanwhile in the Indonesia (perhaps APAC) version is using the traditional phone style abc keypads, the 9100 inherit the SureType keypad just like its predecessors. The buttons are all of course well designed and no doubt about it this is the best SureType BlackBerry ever (for now).

The difference between 9100 and 9105
Image courtesy of mobilegazette.com

The other plus side is that this is also the BlackBerry with 256MB RAM that is upgradeable to OS6. It's official not hybrids nor leaked. The performance? Awesome! :)

The camera quality is acceptable. Since Curve 8900 / Javelin, I believe all the 3,2 megapixels camera in BlackBerry is all with the same quality. The minus is the small display LCD which is contrary to its plus - the smaller size.

For those who doesn't know yet, this BlackBerry 9100 is 99% identical with BlackBerry 9105 except for the keypads. You could also swap the keypads but you need to reinstall the OS then.

Last thing is the battery life. In my usage :

- 10 email accounts, 4 is heavy traffic total around 800-900 emails per day

- SocialScope update every 2 hours

- 4 BlackBerry Groups 

- Less than  10 minutes call / day

The battery will last around 24 hours before it goes low battery (below 10). Neat compared to my 2 last BlackBerry - Storm and Tour - this is a ten. :)

Conclusion? Compared to the upcoming 99xx and 986x which I could not expose freely yet due to NDA, I still stick with this Pearl :) Perhaps with one Android phone.. but haven't decided it yet. Stay tuned!

@romeo_tango