[Review] Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220, A compelling Flip Form smart phone
Here comes the clamshell design from Research in Motion (RIM)’s Blackberry. The Blackberry Bold and Storm which topped the list in 2008 calendar of smart mobile phones, Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220 is an attention puller to those clamshell lovers. With about three-fourth of American population having a special liking towards the flip model, RIM has brought the special kind in the Pearl category.
Put in short, this is what this model holds. An updated operating system and interface, document editing, Wi-Fi, strong email support, and a 2-megapixel camera… It’s not for the power business users, but if you’re looking for your first smart phone or just want to keep tabs on your email and have a penchant for flips phones, the Pearl Flip is a good option.
Pros: Light weight attractive Flip design, Ready wi-fi connectivity, decent battery life
Cons: Sure Type Keying needs a bit more acquaintance with the phone, No GPS
The RIM BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 is available on T-Mobile for $150. In the pack, it has AC adapter, a USB cable, a wired headset, a software CD, and reference material.
Peripheral Design
Colour Variants: comes in black or burgundy.
The flip Variant: To provide the best ergonomic experience, when looked at it from a side profile, one can see that the front flap sits behind the back cover, instead of directly above in every other flip we have seen so far. With the clamshell closed, the front of the phone features a camera, camera flash, message indicator, and a small display screen.
External Display: On the front, you get a 1.6-inch diagonal external non-touch display with a 65,536-color output and 128 x 160-pixel resolution.
The external default screen shows the battery status, alarm status, number of unread messages, signal type and strength, and an analog clock with the date. This also allows you to preview messages when they come in by clicking up or down on the right-hand volume buttons. By pressing the volume down button, the message sender and subject will be displayed, by then pressing the right convenience key, the message itself will be displayed.
Internal display : Measures 2.25 inches diagonally with 65,536 colors at a 240 x 320-pixel resolution. Text and images look incredibly vibrant.
Left Side: 3.5mm headphone jack, the micro USB charging port andthe left convenience key.
Right Side: There are volume buttons and Micro SD card. This makes it so you don’t have to remove your battery to gain access to your memory card, a feature that is on all the new BlackBerries. The last part on this side is the right side convenience key which typically accesses the camera.
Back: Nice smooth matte black plastic finish with thin battery cover. This particular phone is branded with a T-Mobile logo and the nice BlackBerry logo
The Sure-Type Keypad
Below the display, you get Talk and End keys, a BlackBerry menu shortcut, a back button, and trackball navigator.
The Pearl Flip sports a SureType QWERTY keyboard that is much larger than the Pearl 8100 series. Each button is larger which makes it easier to type. An odd new design feature is that the keys curve downward towards the middle. It requires a bit of learning to get used to the predictive keying.
The Blackberry OS looks just as stylish as the hardware design too, with very cool buttons that you’ll want to click and experiment with. The Pearl Flip sports the new BlackBerry OS 4.6, same basic build as the new BlackBerry Bold. Graphically, it’s a big step up from the previous OS, though we wish the text-based elements, like in email and the calendar.
Applications & Software
The Pearl Flip 8220 continues to offer the outstanding email support that BlackBerry is known for in the smart phone world. It can sync with your company’s BlackBerry Enterprise server, with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise, to deliver corporate email in real time.
In addition to an attachment viewer that opens popular file formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Corel WordPerfect, PDF, JPEG, GIF, and more, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 also comes preloaded with DataViz Documents To Go, so you can now edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as well. Other PIM applications on the smart phone include a Calendar, a task list, a memo pad, a voice recorder, a calculator, and more.
The Pearl Flip features a voice recorder and video recorder, in addition to the standard memo pad, task list, calculator, calendar, voice dialing, and password keeper.
To enhance your leisure time/procrastination experience is Word Mole, an interactive search game, Texas Hold’Em, Sudoku, Klondike Solitaire, and Typer Trooper, which makes learning to type as much fun as it was in junior high.
Voice Features
Voice features on the Pearl Flip include quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, conference calling, speed dial, and text and multimedia messaging. You also get Bluetooth 2.0 with support for mono and stereo Bluetooth wireless headsets, hands-free kits, and dial-up networking.
Wi-Fi and BrowserThe Pearl Flip 8220 features a full HTML Web browser and supports streaming video, including YouTube clips. You can choose from various views, such as Page View or Column View, and there’s an onscreen cursor that you can move in any direction and place on any part of the page where you can click a link.
And yup… forgot about the camera… The Pearl Flip comes with a 2-megapixel camera with flash, 5x zoom. The Pearl Flip’s 2-megapixel camera is located on the front of this flip phone. It just works decent. Nothing remarkable and thus we are prone to have forgotten probably.
On a closing note…
It’s a full-fledged BlackBerry that delivers great email, solid multimedia, usable web browsing and all of the other trappings of a smartphone. If you’re looking for a smartphone in a tight form factor this might be what you’re looking for.
See complete specification, latest prices, photos and reviews of Blackberry pearl flip 8220 on Cellbharat store
2 Responses to '[Review] Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220, A compelling Flip Form smart phone'