RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 Smartphone

I am writing this review after only having my Blackberry Pearl for a few days, so this is my initial impression. I will update this if anything should change.

A little background:
I have owned a few smart phones in the past and I use the term smart lightly. Both devices I had were Windows Mobile devices and were garbage. I was plagued with constant lockups during the most inopportune moments. I m in the Public Safety field so use of the phone in some situations is imperative and I could not have a phone lock up when I needed to make an emergency call. After trying two different phones a couple years apart I was hesitant to ever try another smart phone again.
Alone comes Blackberry:
The Blackberry Pearl 8130 caught my eye while trying to replace a regular phone. I talked to a couple people over at Sprint and got their impressions as well as feedback as far as customer complaints and problems were concerned (I have an unusually friendly and honest Sprint store near me so I took their word for it.) The tech s seemed impressed with the device stating they have rarely seen one come back and when it did it was a customer who had their device forever and the battery died or the screen broke.
I headed home and started to do some research on the Pearl and on Blackberry in general. I was pleased to see that most people had little to no problems in general with their Blackberry s and even referred to them as Crackberry s stating that once they got one, they couldn t get rid of it. The biggest complaint people had with the Pearl speceficly was the sure type key board. For those of you that have not seen a Pearl yet the keyboard is a condensed QWERTY keyboard being that some of the keys have two letters assigned to it instead of one. Similar to your cell phones predictive text input, when you type it will try and guess what you are typing. Most people did not like the setup, but admitted it was because they were use to a fully QWERTY keyboard. After using the Sure Type keyboard I was overly impressed. After reading a few negative reviews about people not liking Sure Type I had my sights set low but more about that later. Other then that I could find no complaints of device lockups from routine use.
I purchased my Pearl from Sprint using the SERO options (Sprint Employee Referral Option Google it) It took about a week to get the phone and after a slight mix up with the service plan I was up and running in minutes. My first impression was that of AWE. The phone was thinner, lighter and shorter (flip CLOSED) then my fairly new flip phone which I was replacing. The phone I purchased was a purple color which is closer to black than anything else. The keys were small, but remarkably easy to press without hitting the wrong button on accident. The navigation track ball (the reason they call it the pearl ) was located centered above the keypad just the large and amazing clear screen. The track ball was easy to manipulate with the only exception being that it was awkward at first to press the trackball to select the items. The trackball is recessed partially into the housing and took a little getting used to (you have to use the tip of your finger.) I kept thinking that while I was selecting something on the screen with the trackball that the cursor would move and select something above or below which I actually intended to select but I have not had this issue as of yet.
Typing on the Sure Type keyboard was amazing accurate. Because there is no more then 2 letters per key (some have 1) it is much more accurate at guessing what you want to say then a regular cell phone keyboard with 3 letters per key. Also, if you type out a word and the letters are not correct, you can go back through the word and individually change each letter to make the word correct. I find most times that spelling out a word that is not common, the computer will get close to what I am looking for then I just need to change one or two letters. The computer will also give you a list of suggested words when you are typing making it even quicker and easier. I found typing on the keyboard to be easy and effortless. I have yet to tap a wrong key because my finger slipped of a key or I struck a wrong key because the buttons were too small. The buttons seem small (and they are) but somehow Blackberry has managed to design them in a way that your fingers almost always find the mark.
Setting up the Blackberry was also very simple. A CD came with the device which allowed me to transfer my address book and calendar directly to the device. Dialing was now a breeze. Simply typing a few letters brings up your address book and locates the names you are looking for. One big downfall for me is the device only supports 11 or so speed dials. My old phone used 2-99 as speed dial options which made it easy to program people s numbers. This is a minor annoyance and something I am sure I will get use too quickly. My e-mail was also setup very quickly. A visit to a website allowed me to enter the e-mail address and passwords for up to ten accounts. No complicated coding to enter and tricks to perform on the device itself. Within minutes my Blackberry was receiving e-mails from each account I set up.
The BlackBerry came loaded with tons of software including Sprints navigation (which is free unlimited use with my Blackberry plan.) In testing the GPS is seemed accurate and was very simple to use and follow. I also downloaded Google maps and tested that. Though it does not give you voice directions (at least not that I can figure out) like the Sprint GPS does, It will give you written directions to your destination and will also follow you on the map. You can even switch to satellite view which will give you actual aerial photographs of where you are. The internet is fast and the browser is easy to use and seems to support most websites including secure ones like my bank. A calculator and brick breaker game are also included.
The battery life on the device seems good so far. I have been playing with the device a lot and still seem to get through my entire day with over 50% battery left. I am sure once the newness wears off I will be able to get a couple days out of it easily.