[Closed] Blackberry Pearl info please

Pearl is ok , Curve is better.

I don't believe it comes with excel, although there are plenty of apps you can d/l to it. I'm sure I have see a spreadsheet.

Emails and internet will be free if data is included with your contract. You will have to check.

I have a Pearl and one of the new Curves.

In short, get the Curve. Streets ahead.

The Pearl is a free upgrade, the boss wouldn't pay for the curve I bet

Ah, OK!

In that case.....

Pearl is really nice and small, but the half-qwerty keyboard takes a little getting used to. Once you are used to it, though, it's very quick and easy. Screen resolution is a little poor, and to be honest, there's very little you can do with an excel file on a crackberry at the best of times. If you really need to use excel, I would push for hte Curve as the screen size and resolution make it a lot easier to use.

Oh, and don't forget to pimp your pearl by downloading ColorPearl!

I've a Pearl and its OK, but only OK. Nowehere near as good as my iPhone

My Gf loves hers.

I can't stand it.

I am nokia N-series biased due to ease and functions.

Must admit teh psuhing emails etc is good and the neew blackberry looks ace.

Thanks for that.

What about the Nokia 5800 then?

email and internet will be free UP TO A TINY ****ING LIMIT. Then you have to pay an extortionate amount for data if you are receiving more than say 50 emails a day.

can I just clarify the 'curve is better' comments too. The curve has all exactly the same functionality as the pearl apart from a bigger screen and keyboard and wireless capability. I don't like the curve, it's too big, too big to be a phone. So I got the pearl. Only because I had to mind my old 7100 (which I thought was pretty good) broke after 5 years.

The pearl is actually rather nice. Very small and slim, it's easy enough to type on and setting the font to a small size makes reading big emails no problem.

I'd still have an iphone any day over the blackberry, not my choice though.

I've got a Pearl, and it's fine. I got fed up with brick sized phones in my pocket and was willing to compromise functionality. If you need Excel forget Crackberry and get yourself a Mobile PC. I don't think the Pearl will let you edit a spreadsheet, but you can view email attachment spreadsheets. That said, have you ever tried to edit an Excel sheet on Mobile PC, it's hard work!

A couple of niggles with Pearl, trackball needs regulary cleaning and battery life isn't too great. Otherwise a good phone.

Used to have a pearl and quite liked it for what it was, though the lack of decent excel was a deal breaker for me. Did download an app that allowed xls files to be viewed and edited, though it is difficult due to screen size as others have said.

I then had a windows based htc touch pro. Great input, wifi, excel works well, but the whole windows os was a bit of a nightmare, push email was also a bit crap.

Now have a nokia e71 and it meets all my needs. Good 'in between' size, usable qwerty keyboard, quickoffice works quite well for creating and editing excel files. Has wifi, intuitive symbian ui and fairly fast and stable symbian os. Inbuilt gps is also great, have garmin software to use as a sat nav for driving, and viewranger with os maps for riding.

The E71 is very nice. If you can get push email on it, I'd go for that over the BB.

Yes, you can get push email on the E71 - at least I can on mine with vodafone. It's perhaps not quite such a slick email service as the BB, but overall I much prefer it as a device.

A couple of niggles with Pearl, trackball needs regulary cleaning and battery life isn't too great. Otherwise a good phone.

Sorry for the slight hijack, but how do you go about cleaning your trackball? I tried recently and was scuppered by the tiny torque bolts in the back of the phone.....

Agree with most of the above - nice, little phone - main gripe for me is the way the ringer doesn't make itself known until about the fourth ring - many callers have given up before you even know someone's calling you.