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Telstra's Pearl BlackBerry Pearl |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Monday, 07 May 2007 |
The news that Telstra has a Pearl coloured BlackBerry Pearl was
somewhat overshadowed last week by the announcement of the new
BlackBerry Curve (8300), but a 'Pearl White' BlackBerry is also an interesting addition to Research in Motion's (RIM) smartphone range.
A Pearl Pearl is a purely aesthetic offering that shows just how
committed RIM has become to making a go of it in the high-volume
consumer smartphone market.
The
BlackBerry Pearl with its multimedia player, digital camera and support
for Yahoo! and Google messaging is an unashamedly consumer device.
Prosumer at the very least. With the Pearl, RIM is targeting that
sector of the market that is looking to keep in touch using the latest
communications technologies, but isn't willing to carry around a device
large enough to sport a full QWERTY keyboard.
Instead of the full keyboard, the Pearl was the first BlackBerry to
sport the new trackball navigation device that now seems to have
completely replaced the traditional, iconic BlackBerry thumbwheel. And
instead of the full keyboard, the Pearl devices sport an enhanced version of RIM's
SureType QWERTY keypad which combines predictive texting with a keypad that shares only two letters per key on a 20 key pad.
It works quite well if you are a regular phone user, but dyed in the
wool CrackBerry addicts would probably find the solution sub-optimal.
On the Pearl it gives you easy access to Instant Mesaging, text
messaging (SMS), the organiser and email in a phone that isn't going to
make you feel like you are at work.
Another great feature introduced by RIM for the first time on the Pearl is the Speaker
Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialling
(VAD). This allows any user to make voice activated calls to any
number in the address book without setting a voice tag to the entry.
The speaker independent voice recognition is clever enough to 'read'
the name of your contact and recognise it when you or somebody else
speaks the name - without any training. It has an impressive success rate.
Like the earlier, black, BlackBerry Pearl, the new Pearl Pearl comes with an
automatic adjusting high resolution (240 x 260) colour display that
isn't the largest you will find in a smartphone, but it is adequate for
a small device. The Pearl measures 107x50x14.5mm and
weighs in at just 89 grams so it competes with the smallest and
lightest when you consider the high level of functionality packed into
it. There's little doubt that any fashion conscious prosumer saddled by
the boss with a traditional BlackBerry is going to go green with envy.
  
www.blackberrypearl.com
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