With the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105, Canadian manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) is trying the balancing act between a classical push email handset and a mass market device. The smartphone looks like a typical candybar cell phone because it is slim and because it does not have a full QWERTZ keyboard. To make the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 appeal to more cell phone users, RIM has given it UMTS and HSDPA 3.6 support because today consumers want a phone with UMTS support. Actually there is no need for that because of the data compression of the Blackberry server. I still use my old Blackberry Curve 8900 with GPRS and EDGE support and visiting mobile web portals or transfering emails with attachments or snapshots made with the 3.2-megapixel camera with it is just fine. On the other hand: In order to become a mainstream consumer device the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 did not get a full physical QWERTZ keyboard or – like previous Pearl phones – a compact QWERTZ keyboard with two letters on each button.

In Germany, the smartphone comes with an alphanumeric keypad and a predictive-text system called SureType. SureType easily recognizes simple words or phrases as long as you try the right “spelling”. The preditictive-text system will not correct your typing or spelling mistakes. It probably takes a few days until the new Blackberry user decides to keep the program activated or to switch to the direct input mode. At the beginning this SureType system knows 35,000 words, later on it draws on emails or other messages on the phone in order to improve its predictions. When the software does not recognize a word, the cell phone user can always type in the right letters directly. For short messages the alphanumeric keypad might be enough – Blackberry purists will miss the QWERTZ keyboard.

The 624-MHz processor of the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 with 256 MB Flash and 256 MB SDRAM makes sure that applications and programs on the phone run fast and smoothly. The menu offers typical organizer functions such a s address book and calendar as well as SMS, MMS, email push, the office software Documents to Go and social networking clients such as Twitter or Facebook. The User interface of the Blackberry smartphones might look a little dated or be less graphical such as iPhone OS or Android OS – but it is easily understood and used. The Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 also offers access to the Blackberry app store called App World. However, there aren’t as many apps in the BlackBerry App World as in the iTunes or Android app stores, and paid Blackberry apps tend to be quite expensive.

The smartphone has 3G connectivity and supports the latest WiFi standard 802.11n. The TFT screen of the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 is small, but sharp, bright and contrasty. The quality of pictures shot with the 3.2-megapixel camera of the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 is just good enough to publish the snapshots on social networking portals or to send them by MMS to friends. Pictures are not really sharp and show image noise. The sound of the music player for MP3, AAC or WMA audio files is quite natural and offers several equalizer presets. For using navigation or other location based services, the Pearl 3G comes with an integrated GPS receiver and Blackberry Maps with turn-by-turn navigation.

The slimness and the black casing adds to the smartphone’s high-quality appearance of the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 – it does not look as cheap as the Blackberry Curve 8520 even though the casing consists mostly of plastics. Just like the Blackberry Curve 8520, the Pearl 3G comes with a trackpad, an optical mouse, that works fine as long as the user doesn’t have sweaty fingers – I prefer the trackball of the Blackberry Curve 8900. Calling quality is good, the battery lasts at least for two days until it needs to be recharged.

In summary: The Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 is slim and looks good, fits into any pocket, has a fast processor, has great connectivity and great email and messaging capability and you can even use it for surfing on mobile web portals. On the other hand, Blackberry fans will miss the full QWERTZ keyboard. Vodafone will market the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 soon, Amazon is selling it for € 499.50 without contract.

Specifications of Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105:
Operating System: Blackberry OS 5.0
CPU: Intel XScale 624 MHz
GSM Networks: 850, 900, 1,800, 1,900 MHz
Data Transfer: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA 3.6 mbps, WiFi (b/g/n)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 3.0, USB
Screen: 2.24-inch TFT with 400 x 360 pixels resolution and 65,536 colors
Keyboard: virtual QWERTZ, SurePress
Camera: 3.2-megapixel with autofocus and video capture (VGA resolution)
Other: Media Player with 3.5-mm headset jack, A-GPS
Storage: 256 MB + 32 GB microSD
Size: 108 x 50 x 13,3 mm
Weight: 93 g
Speaking Time: 5 hrs (GSM) or 5.5 hrs (UMTS)

Read more about the Blackberry Pearl 3G 9105 at www.teltarif.de (in German).