Pierre Khawand of People-OnTheGo included a BlackBerry Pearl in his interesting project: The 81 Day Experiment. He's spending 9 days with 9 different handheld devices and blogging about each one. Here are his posts about the Pearl.
He'll post a wrap up at the end of the 81 days, but it's his final thoughts about the Pearl that grabbed my eye. Here's who might NOT want a Pearl:
- Users who are looking for a "computing" device that can play the role of a laptop replacement (rather than just an elegant and capable smart phone)
- Users who have a lot of typing to do (while the SureType™ and multi-tap do a great job, nothing can beat the good old BlackBerry with the two thumbs racing together on that wide keyboard).
- Users who need faster Internet access than what the EDGE network can offer, or who happen to be in areas where the GPRS/EDGE network signal is not ideal (many spots in San Francisco quality), or who are not willing or able to switch to T-Mobile (or Cingular later).
- Mac users who just don't want to wait for Pocket Mac to become available.
- Finally, users who just don't "click" with the BlackBerry Pearl. Usability and form factor are very subjective, so you won't know whether the BlackBerry Pearl is for you until you take the test drive (put your hands on the device and see what it does for you).
