... if you don't then you wouldn't be buying a smartphone. People that buy smartphones then don't get the data plan do not have more money than brains, they simply don't have brains.

 

Hubby had the Pearl and exchanged it a week later for something else. The keyboard on a Pearl is a whole new experience coming from a non-pda phone. The old phones had a-b-c at #1, but the Pearl has it like a regular keyboard with q-w-e being on #1. If you're used to txt'ing on a standard cell phone then it will take some getting used to.

I have the Curve for work and love it. I've had no issues with it (which I can't say about any of my other phones in the past - ROKR being the last) and it works great for emails & txting.

 

a lot of people get blackberries and other high dollar phones just to be "cool"

 

Here it is, I'm a longtime blackberry user and I also have been supporting them at work for a number of years.

Flat out, if you aren't hooking it up to a Blackberry Enterprise Server, then I probably wouldn't buy a blackberry. Your not getting the full features and the current crop of smartphones out there really beat the non BES blackberry.

I have the 8800 and it's very nice. I have a 2GB card in it and I pretty much don't use it at all. As far as an MP3 player goes, it's very very basic. I have an 80gb ipod, no sense to load this up too.

Personally I hate hate hate the keyboards on the Pearl. There are folks who love them and folks who think it's worth it for the tradeoff of having a sexy slim phone. I tried one for a week and it almost went through a wall. The guessing that the phone does is pretty darn good. I'd say it works about 98% of the time. The problem is that with a normal keyboard you can just type away, but with the pearl style keyboard you are constantly having to check what you just typed. Takes more time to plug out a message than with a normal phone. Plus, if your like me, and are a bad speller who occasionally types miskeys, guess what happens on the Pearl. Instead of plugging in the incorrectly spelled word, it plugs in some totally other word. However, if your paying attention, I guess it could make you a better speller.

I've had a blackberry for so long that I don't have any experience really with other phones. I tried a TREO a few years ago as our company was looking to start supporting them. My final verdict was that it was a sweet phone that I'd love to have and love for the company to buy for me. However, they'd need to hire someone else to support it because there's no way I'd be responsible for fixing all the crap that a user can do wrong with a TREO.

 

Dropped my A900 in the snow yesterday, and the speaker stopped working, so today I went to the Sprint store and started playing with the phones... It came down to the Palm Centro and the BB Pearl. I went with the Pearl... I love it so far.

 

Its an awesome phone so far... Texting is a bit weird cause of the QWERTY keyboard, but I'm getting used to it.

 

Depends on what you're doing... if you're texting, it does T9/auto spell/whatever you want to call it by default. If you're searching in the phone book, you hit the button again to get to the other letter... Just like you would with a normal phone.

 

I have the Blackberry Pearl with Cingular, good phone, I like the calender (I use it for a note pad for reminders) and the voice activation is sweet. (calls ANY number in your address book, or any number you speek) One problem is the only internet plan you can get is the Blackberry plan, it's a little pricy. If you have the know-how, the smart phone part of it can be sweet,,,,,, but I don't have the know-how to bring out all the bells and wistles. Screen is a mid size, but very clear. Camara is very good quality. Overll, not sure I would buy it again, mainly due to the internet issue.

 

I bought mine through FireFly.com when I renwed my plan and the Pearl was free. That is the only way I would get a high dollar smart phone. I've had no problems with the phone, but my son has had some issues with his. (I got both at the same time) I took out the firefly insurance on the phones, but they make you buy the replacment phone, then they pay you back.

 

I'm sorry, it was wirefly.com I was at a point I could renew my contract and wirefly has specials. When I renewed mine and my sons, it was maybe 6 mos ago. Look at what they offer. The only problem was the insurance issue. They had told me "replacment with no questions asked the first year". But when my sons phone got lost, they said I had to buy a phone, then send them the rec and they would pay me back. They sounded like they were from India.