BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Smartphone, Black (Sprint)

BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Smartphone, Black (Sprint) Features

Additional BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Smartphone, Black (Sprint) Information

Nicely compact and lightweight at just 3.4 ounces and 0.55 inches thin.

Quickly and accurately type messages thanks to the SureType enhanced predictive text typing technology.

The Sprint Music Store enables you to buy, download, and then jam out wherever you are with new songs or old favorites. Offering a growing selection of more than 1.6 million songs, the store provides you two copies of each song--one for the phone and another for the PC, as well as the ability to burn songs to a CD using Windows Media Player. Save your songs to a memory card with a capacity that's right for you.

With Sprint TV, you can make your BlackBerry 8130 Pearl 2 your always-on source for news, weather, sports and more. This comprehensive video service combines high-quality streaming audio and video from channels including the NFL Network, ABC, The Weather Channel, Fox Sports, E!, CNN, The Discovery Channel, and more.

The Sprint Software Store, powered by Handmark, offers a wide selection of software, games, ringtones, graphics and other Windows Mobile applications to purchase and download right to your phone.

This phone is also GPS enabled, allowing you to receive audible and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, map your location, or conduct local searches direct from your handset. BlackBerry Maps, which can conveniently guide users to their destination, now includes a local search capability that allows users to find local businesses, such as banks, hotels and restaurants, within a short driving distance. Sprint Navigation requires a separate subscription.

More than just an email companion, the Pearl 8130 also offers built-in GPS, a media player, and 2.0-megapixel camera with video capture capabilities.

It sports a large 240 x 260 screen that supports over 65,000 colors--plenty of real estate to view your e-mails, Web browser content, messaging sessions, and attachments. The venerable BlackBerry trackwheel has been replaced on this model with an innovative four-way trackball placed below the screen. On the rear of the handheld, you'll find a 2.0-megapixel camera and a self portrait mirror. The handheld's MicroSD memory card slot is located inside the device, behind the battery. There's also a standard 3.5mm headset jack that can be used with the included headset, as well as a mini-USB port for data connectivity.

The Pearl 8130 features an updated visual interface and integrates a new font rendering technology that displays characters with enhanced legibility at even the smallest point sizes. The BlackBerry Browser is further improved with a new "Page View" option that displays a full web page on the screen along with a magnifying glass that allows the user to quickly and accurately point and zoom in on a specific area of the web page. It also provides quicker access to Bookmarks and History, and supports the 3GPP RTSP Streaming protocol via EV-DO, so you can view streaming video from sites like m.youtube.com.

With a BlackBerry data plans from Sprint, you can receive e-mails instantaneously from up to 10 e-mail accounts (personal and enterprise). And with BlackBerry push technology, you don't need to retrieve your e-mail. BlackBerry devices are designed to remain on and continuously connected to the wireless network, allowing you to be discreetly notified as new e-mail arrives. Support is also built-in for viewing e-mail attachments (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, and PDF formats).

This phone provides Bluetooth version 2.0 wireless connectivity, and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, audio/video remote control, and printing. With the A2DP Bluetooth profile, you can stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones. The integrated media player allows you to create and edit playlists right on the handset. The Pearl 8130 also features a 2 megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom and enhanced flash. The new camera also supports video capture in two resolutions: 240x180 or 176x144 for sharing via MMS.

Other features include:

• Phone as Modem Capable: Use the included USB cable to connect to laptops for a wireless modem, or choose to run this capability via Bluetooth with no USB cable requirement.
• Voice Command and Voice Activated Dialing: Built-in speaker independent voice command allows users to look up contacts, place phone calls and access key information from the device.
• Voice Notes: Make a voice note and send as an email .wmv file attachment.
• Productivity Tools: View and update your calendar, schedule appointments, checks your task list and more while you're on the go. Also includes a calculator, alarm clock and memo pad.
• Notification: Polyphonic, MIDI, MP3 ringtones plus vibrate mode
• Rating for hearing aids: M3, T3
• Instant Messaging: Connect with your IM contacts using popular applications like Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk
• 64 MB internal memory
• 3.5mm stereo headset capable
• Built-in speakerphone

Vital Statistics
The Blackberry Pearl 8130 weighs 3.4 ounces and measures 4.2 x 1.9 x 0.55 inches. Its 900 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 4.6 hours of talk time, and up to 216 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the 850/1900 CDMA frequencies and is compatible with the EV-DO data network.

What Customers Say About BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Smartphone, Black (Sprint):

For what I use it for, I would recommend. Other complaint is the battery charge only lasts about 2 days. Good for traveling also.

This one is really good for what I use it for, which is just to stay on top of e-mail, mainly at night and on the weekends. You have to basically find them yourself by searching on the phone itself, which is hit or miss. I have used a lot of cell phones in my lifetime and wish that I could give this a 5 star review, but I can't.

I like the compact size as this phone fits in a pocket of a pair of Jeans or Khakis well. Others maybe disappointed though. I would not recommend it for web surfing or other functions.

The manual is poor at best and the functions that I want to find out about, are not listed in the manual.

Form factor: sleek and sexy. I wish there was a feature to easily switch between T9 mode and single key entry mode but it involves going thru menus etc. I have a 4gig memory card in it so can store approx 60-70 cd's at high quality. 3g data eats away at battery life but holds its own next to Palm or iphone.User Interface: better than palm, not as incredible or cool as iphone. Definitely intuitive. I've read there are 3rd party players you can buy that are better. I recommend it. I've found it surprisingly "smart" when typing and it's probably actually faster than using a full qwerty phone once you learn to trust it.

They will screw up your requests repeatedly. But for just playing tunes on the subway, in the car, at the gym, it's at least functional. Phone has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack which is GREAT as you can use any headphones (most phones have the mini 2.5mm jack). One glaring stupid bug is that when your internal memory fills us, your texts are automatically deleted.

I wish the blackberry was more customizable. Operating system is pretty clear and after a few days I'm getting the hang of texting, emailing, shortcuts etc. But overall really not a problem.Other things: Blackberry has a HUGE online community, so an advantage of using this phone is that it's easy to learn more about it online as there are countless chatrooms and blackberry enthusiasts. BB Message: Cool feature I didn't know about till after. SPRINT service: Good coverage, rarely have a problem finding bars in urban or rural settings.

Debated between this and iphone but didn't want more expensive plan and AT&T overall crappiness.One thing to remember is that there is no perfect smart phone. Audio Quality: Superb. I can't figure out easy ways to, say, keep my text messages in a different location from a voicemail notification or an email. Duh duh duh. This is a consumer-oriented phone and makes it easy to text, email, surf, play mp3s, and most importantly, make clear calls.

It integrates everything into one folder which can be annoying. Keyboard: One worry I had was switching from the full qwerty of the Centro to the Pearl's modified predictive text qwerty. Bought this Pearl after using a Palm Centro for almost a year and other flip phones for years before that. Calls are loud and clear, and people on the other end say I sound clear with minimal background noise (important when walking NYC streets). It's not perfect but definitely ahead of the Palm Centro or any standard clamshell phone.

Overall though I really like this phone. Trackball is fairly easy to use but isn't as super sensitive as it could be. I liked the feature set of the Centro but audio quality was horrible, and the operating system was very antiquated and incompatible with many newer mobile web features like the gmail app, google maps my location etc. It's easy enough to, say, start a record, but pausing, navigating, stopping etc easily requires too many steps. Interestingly a friend's Verizon Pearl doesn't have as good quality, so maybe they changed something in the Sprint model.

Fits easily in your pocket. Definitely a good deal. $89.99 for 900 minutes, free data, unlimited text and GPS. You sacrifice size to get a bigger keyboard, or choice of carrier and actual tactile keys to get an iphone, etc. Customer service is HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE. The audio player is clunky and poorly designed, no where approaching an ipod level. would be cool to have a toggle on and off on the keyboard.

I've read they are making strides to change this so here's to hoping.Overall this is probably the best phone I've had. Probs best 3g deal in America (T-mobile is slightly less but not 3g). Simple and QUICK way of texting other BB users.Multimedia: very good camera (2 megapixels, pretty sharp) with flash and video feature. As long as you don't deal with them too much you will enjoy your phone. There is no way to save them to your SD card. They are incompetent or rude, or both.

Finally a phone that actually performs well in its primary function. It's not flawless but definitely very good and I don't feel inhibited. Hopefully they will fix this down the road with upgrades. Fun to look at and hold.Battery Life: seems pretty good for a smart phone. Being a gmail user, I just didn't set up my blackberry mail thing and just use the gmail app, which is fast, easy and great.

She said she did and of course, it's still on my bill. A lady from Sprint called me trying to sell something and extend my contract, I laughed so hard, that she actually tried to fix my problems. Plan on a two-hour call to get something accomplished and then prepare yourself to be utterly crazed with anger when you see that nothing was actually done several times.

The absolute worst.If you call them today, July 15'th 2008, you will get through the prompts until you are given a wait-time and then the systems tells you to call back later and hangs up on you. Things have appeared on my bill for a year that shouldn't be there. A word about Sprint: They used to be the best, and they are now the worst.

I have made 5 attempts to fix this and finally gave up. I'm turning off my phone today. I'm not surprised at all.

They got rid of 80 % of their customer service workforce.

According to Blackberry they are working on solutions.If you can use Outlook this is a wonderful phone and PDA. There are numerous comments about these problems on the Web. It has good reception, is a great size, and connects well to the Internet. Outlook cannot be used in some health care environments. If you must use Novell (rather than Outlook) for synchronization there are problems with synchronization of contacts and memos.

Or at least that seems to be the only reason I can think of why they would do this. Since the current OS from RIM for this phone allows for 8GB microSDHC memory cards, it beats having to carry around a separate MP3 player.I admit that the "pearl" trackball took a bit of time to get used to, and I'm not enamored with the ridiculous QWERTY setup with two letters per key (I prefer the three letter per number key in alphabetical order - having lived in Japan for six years I am highly efficient typing with just my thumb), but I suppose there are people with hands tiny enough to touch-type with both hands on a BlackBerry. Oh well, I suppose it won an Industrial Design award so who am I to judge. I purchased this phone with the "Simply Everything" plan from Sprint and it was an exceptional value since (theoretically) I got it for free. Once my mail-in rebate check arrives I'm sure things will even out.Nevertheless, it's packed with useful features and has some amazing capabilities regarding resolving full-size webpages in its browser and a very handy GPS.