Who's BabeBerry? She's a friend of mine from back in the day. You can think of her as the good looking girl who gets hit on all the time by guys which in turn has made her the type of person who is short on patience and always speaks her mind. I bumped into her the other week and was shocked to discover her carrying a BlackBerry Pearl Flip. Last we had spoke, she had a "thing" against us BlackBerry users. I asked her how she was liking it, and when she started spewing out pros and cons of the Pearl Flip compared to her old Motorola Razr which she had upgraded from, I stopped her and said write it down and email it to me.
So here it is. Keep reading after the jump for some non-techy BlackBerry Pearl Flip vs. Motorola Razr talk straight from BabeBerry herself.
BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 vs. Motorola Razr
by BabeBerry
First off, I have repeatedly said that I will never get a BlackBerry, or become one of those "BlackBerry people." Because, no offense, but a lot of people with BlackBerrys can be very obnoxious. There are 2 reasons that I got this phone:
1. It's a flip phone, so it's really a regular phone with more features, and I don't feel like I'm talking to a calculator.
2. The iPhone (or 'DouchePhone' as my friends and I call it) has replaced the BlackBerry as obnoxious guy technology of choice, so BlackBerrys are now safe for the rest of us.
BlackBerry Pearl Flip First impressions:
It's very nice looking, a little narrower than my old phone, but also fatter, which is not ideal. I liked that the RAZR fit in my pocket. This one does still, but not as easily.
It's really light. I like that too.
The screen seems to randomly get brighter, and then dim. Possibly my eyes, but I find it odd.
The buttons are really smooth. Does that sound weird?
What I like about the Pearl Flip vs the Motorola Razr:
1. Email, obviously.
2. Texting - that you can choose how many messages you can see in a conversation when you select a past message. On the RAZR when I would be reading my text conversations to someone, I would have to continually flip between "sent" and "received" texts.
3. Also, you could only keep up to ~45 texts on the RAZR before it got mad at you. This one seems to be keeping all of them so far.
4. Voice dialing - it's cool. The woman talks to you. The best part is that you don't have to first program in the name with your own voice.
5. It shows you all of the waiting messages in one place at the bottom of the screen when it's closed.
6. Built in flash on the camera - awesome.
7. Blackberry messenger. I really like it! I like the emoticons, and that it's instant. Also, this might sound stalker-ish, but I really like that you know when people have read your messages.
8. BlackBerry Messenger - I like that you can send pictures, and it's free and instant. This deserved its own point. I don't know when I'll use it, but it seems like a great idea!
9. I also really like that you can have conference messenger conversations. I just planned next weekend with 2 people, and all of us are in different cities! Plus we were able to use the emoticons to express our feelings.
10. I REALLY like how it keeps applications active in the background. I probably said that wrong, but I mean that I can be writing a text, close my phone (if, for example, someone walks into my office) and when I open it again the text is still there.
11. I also really like how you can switch between other things on the phone and keep applications open/active. I know this is probably the same as number 8 but to my technological ineptitude it seems like 2 different things, both good.
12. I like how whatever is happening shows up very large on the screen when it's closed.
13. Ringtones. Yes, I could have added ringtones for everything on the RAZR, but it was much more difficult. It is really easy and intuitive, and the sound quality is much better. Emailing ringtones to my BlackBerry from CrackBerry.com is so easy. I love that they're free.
14. This is not confirmed, but I think when I called my voicemail it showed a picture of the person who left me the message. If so - very cool.
15. I like that there is a "messages" folder that holds all my messages. I don't use it much, but when I do it makes me feel popular.
16. I love the blinking red light. It sounds crazy, but I like it.
17. The buttons are bigger and easier to use. I like them a lot. And nicer than the metal buttons. And the metal buttons would get kind of grimy and gross looking, and I don't think this will happen.
18. The camera - I really like the zoom with the trackball, very easy and intuitive. I also like that it is easy to understand where your picture is going. It was really annoying on the RAZR, there was a long delay, and then it was really easy to accidentally lose the picture.
19. It only notifies you about a message once. Anyone with a RAZR will know what I'm talking about - it used to beep non-stop until you cleared whatever message was there. Ridiculously irritating.
20. The speakerphone button - it's so convenient!
Things I don't like about the Pearl Flip so far:
1. You can't use the camera when it's closed. With my RAZR I could take self-portaits when it's closed.
2. You can't use speakerphone when it's closed. With the RAZR you could call someone, turn on speakerphone, close the phone, and still use it. If you try it with the Blackberry Flip it hangs up on the person. And they get mad. And it's super irritating, because I tend to call people in the car, use the super easy speakerphone feature, put it in my cupholder in the car and close it.
3. You can't change the Profile when it's closed. This was a great thing about the RAZR. The volume keys on the side would also change the profile. So if, for example, you walked into a business meeting and realized you had your phone set to ring with a loud ringtone, you could subtly change it to silent without opening the phone, or even taking it out of your purse.
4. Basically you can't do anything when it's closed. And that sucks.
5. The clock thing on the front has to be one of a standard set of clocks. On my old phone it would be whatever your background picture was. Which was good, because a lot of my friends had RAZRs, and this way we never mixed them up. Plus it made your phone unique. Now they will all look the same.
6. I don't like how the voicedialing person doesn't hear me when I say "yes." And yes, I realize it's not a person, but I don't like it.
7. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why the ringtone wasn't changing on my BlackBerry Messenger messages. I wasn't changing the right category, because apparently the right category is called "BlackBerry Messenger Ne..." I had no idea what that meant, issue being that I am not psychic.
8. What's the deal with the wrench representing "options?" Wrench obviously means tools, not options.
9. The inset trackball. This might sound sexist, but I'm assuming that this phone will be bought primarily by women (of which I am one). However, it is really difficult/impossible to use the trackball properly with long nails. And seriously, this is a chick phone. Chicks have long nails. At least the ones who get manicures.
10. K this is picky, but what's the deal with the icon for voicemails? Is this 1945?
11. I think it would be really great if the orientation would change when I turn the phone sideways. It's really hard to look at pictures and things on the screen as is.
12. Text messages - it doesn't clearly say which ones are saved or "locked." On the RAZR it would show a little lock on the ones I had locked.
13. I don't like how it previews the messages, mainly because I keep my personal email on my blackberry and check it at the office, and if I leave my phone out I do not want my coworkers "accidentally" seeing what I'm receiving. Especially the messages from certain people. But now I know how to turn that off, so it's ok.
14. I just find the phone icons a little confusing. I keep forgetting which ones mean I called out, or I received. Also, I don't like how you can't view the details of the call. I realize all the details are there, but since the screen is so narrow it shrinks the name, and some of my friends have the same names.
15. I'd like it better if it would know who I was calling when I dial the number from memory. It doesn't recognize the number until after I push send. Yes, I still know some phone numbers.
16. I need to preface this with the fact that I never used T-9 typing, I always used tapping or whatever it's called on my old phone. But: what's the deal with some of its word suggestions? Creeprd - clearly not a word. Obviously I meant Creeped. And yes I know technically Creeped is not a word either, but it is way more of a word than Creeprd. Also, I use the acronym "K" a lot, and it always types "J." This is annoying, and I can't seem to teach it to stop.
17. For some reason my hotmail is not getting my calendar invitations, even though they come to my hotmail account on my computer. Annoying.
18. I don't like the actual "phone" as much. It's not as comfortable on the face as the razor, and maybe this is just me but I find that it's harder to cradle hands free. And I've already mentioned my issue with speakerphone. And yes, I do have a Bluetooth, but I can't find it right now.
19. For some reason my hotmail emails are sometimes randomly delayed. I don't know why.
Final Thoughts for now:
With the holidays coming I pointed my mother to ShopCrackBerry.com to buy my presents. I told Kevin I wished the Pearl Flip had GPS (I get lost easily) and he told me about the bluetooth Freedom GPS thing you can put on your keychain so it works like it has GPS. I want that!
As for being a BlackBerry owner, it's a lot better than I thought it would be. It makes me think I should have upgraded a long time ago, though I'm not sure I would like any of the other BlackBerrys. Though this new Curve that just came out does look pretty nice (still a bit too much like a calculator though and I work in finance so see enough of those all day long). In the meantime, I'm really liking my Pearl Flip!
