The 2007 release of the Blackberry 8100 Pearl certainly caught plenty of attention as it was the first of these Mobile Internet & E-mail that strived to be a compact and accessible to more than just the business market.
This was mainly due to the unusual half-QWERTY keyboard that made the 8100 more like a standard bar phone in terms of appearance, thus broadening the appeal when compared to the normal devices which were less than compact (putting it mildly).
With the new , the Canadian manufacturers are clearly looking to consolidate and build on the relative success experienced by its predecessor.
The majority of the feature set from the older Pearl still remain; notably the lightweight design; Bluetooth 2.0 (no A2DP sadly); USB Port; microSD card slot and obviously the standard Blackberry E-mailing services.
What has been added to the above is built-in GPS for easy navigation and the camera has also been upped to 2 Megapixel. Admittedly not groundbreaking, but it's a start.
Sadly still remaining, is the Blackberry customised user interface which may be good for some, but in my opinion is not particularly user friendly & far less easy to use than Windows Mobile. It is a little baffling to see why Blackberry are continuing to persevere with this when it would be much more sound business decision to update this more along the lines of the Windows, or even (dare I say it) the Apple UI.
Still present as ever, is the trackball navigation wheel which seems to have split opinion amongst users. Personally I feel that this is a very-good method of navigation, but implementation is slightly too loose and with a few software adjustments to this, it could easily become more popular and widely-used.
Overall, the Blackberry 8110 Pearl is a minor - and with the exception of the new GPS module & updated camera - almost unnecessary upgrade to the original Pearl. With possibly an upgraded UI, Wi-Fi, 3G and re-designed keyboard implemented this would be a worthwhile upgrade for owners of the original Pearl, but with so little being changed or tweaked, it is unlikely it would worth bothering with, unless you really want that GPS in your Blackberry.
