TECHNOLOGY: The Pearl is the new jewel in the crown of the BlackBerry empire
If success were based on looks alone, Canada's Research in Motion would have a knockout winner with its latest device, the BlackBerry Pearl. In terms of "wow", the Pearl is tough to beat (
www.blackberry.com).
Sleek and slim with a piano-black and silver case, the BlackBerry 8100 (aka Blackberry Pearl) looks more like LG's new Chocolate smartphone than RIM's usual more boxy and functional designs.
The 8100 is also the Canadian manufacturer's first multimedia-enabled BlackBerry with built-in digital zoom camera and full MP3 music and video playback capabilities.
The Pearl is RIM's answer to critics - including many loyal BlackBerry users such as me - who love BlackBerry's easy, secure and reliable wireless e-mail capabilities but feel compelled to carry a separate camera phone and/or digital music player.
Measuring 2in wide, 4.2in long and 0.6in thick and weighing just 3.2oz, this device looks, feels and handles like a high-end, Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone with good reception and excellent sound quality, 20-plus hours of battery talk-time and lots of bonus features.
As a long-time BlackBerry user (my wife says "addict") I was keen to judge how the Pearl stacks up against the increasingly sophisticated competition - including Motorola's Q, Nokia's E61/E62 and Palm's Treo 750 series. I also wanted to assess whether RIM had been forced to sacrifice any of the features that have made its products the must-have device for politicians, business leaders and celebrities.
At the outset, I had doubts. Two of my favourite BlackBerry features are the side scroll wheel that lets me do most things with one hand and the mini thumb- operated Qwerty keyboard that RIM pioneered.
The BlackBerry Pearl has neither. The scroll wheel is replaced by the pearly navigation "tracker ball" that gives the 8100 its popular moniker.
Once I had adjusted the tracker ball's sensitivity I quickly got used to it and began to appreciate the extra speed and flexibility of moving the cursor horizontally as well as up and down.
The other big and obvious change - previewed in the 7100 and 7130 series - is the replacement of the mini keyboard with SureType predictive text technology that combines a traditional phone keypad and familiar Qwerty keyboard spread over just 20 keys.
Having found the 7100's rocker-style multi-letter keys and SureType technology hard to master,
I was pleasantly surprised not to have the same problems with the Pearl keyboard. It is laid out in the familiar Qwerty style and no key has more than two letters associated with it. Also, the latest version of SureType is eerily accurate - in a month of testing I have rarely had to correct a word manually, apart from some names.
The keyboard operates in two modes - SureType and Multi-tap, which involves hitting a two-letter key once for the first letter and twice for the second. SureType is the default for most applications and fields and Multi-tap is the default for phone numbers and password fields. Both work remarkably well.
Other distinctive physical features include a super-bright, 2in, 240x260 pixel colour screen with excellent text readability and backlit keyboard that both adjust automatically to ambient lighting levels, dedicated "menu" and "back step" keys, and twin user-definable keys on either side of the device.
Inside, the Pearl is powered by a fairly fast Strong ARM microprocessor, 64Mb of flash memory, removable lithium battery pack and the latest version of RIM's proprietary multi-tasking operating system, which lets users run multiple applications simultaneously and switch between them quickly and easily.
My Pearl, running on T-Mobile USA's GSM/GPRS/Edge wireless network, came with a full complement of software applications including standard e-mail, calendar, address book and web browser.
Like other BlackBerries, the Pearl supports both desktop wireless e-mail for individual users and business e-mail for companies running RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) software. It also comes with a vector-based map utility, desktop search, password keeper, IM (Instant Messaging) software that supports AOL, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo services, and one game - the BlackBerry classic BrickBreaker.
The big surprise is probably the multimedia capabilities. The built-in 1.3Mp (megapixel) digital camera takes reasonable images and comes with a 5x digital zoom, built-in flash and superbly simple software that lets users delete, store, e-mail or name a new image with just one tracker ball press.
The built-in media player provides access to stored music, video, still images and ringtones. The Pearl comes with a mini-SD card slot for additional storage, although one of my few complaints about the device is that the slot is hidden under the battery compartment.
While media playback controls are limited, sound quality is on a par with most standalone MP3 players. Sadly, like other wireless handsets, the Pearl comes with a 2.5mm phone-style headset socket rather than the standard 3.5mm stereo jack needed to plug in a set of higher-quality audio headphones, but adapters are available.
These are relatively
small niggles. Overall, the BlackBerry Pearl delivers pretty much everything existing BlackBerry users might want and potential BlackBerry users might hanker after - without serious compromises.
At $199 (with a two-year service contract) from T-Mobile USA, the new BlackBerry is competitively priced and a worthy standard-bearer for RIM. RIM says the Pearl should be available in other markets, including the UK, shortly.
黑莓8100的功能革命
如
果成功仅仅取决于外表，那么加拿大RIM公司(Research in Motion)最新推出的“黑莓珍珠”(BlackBerry Pearl)将获得压倒性胜利。若论功能上的“一鸣惊人”之处，“黑莓珍珠”也难觅对手。(
www.blackberry.com)
“黑莓8100”（BlackBerry 8100，也被称为“黑莓珍珠”）外形圆滑、纤细，外壳为钢琴黑加浅灰色，与RIM通常采用的更加矮胖、更加注重功能的设计相比，它看起来更像是LG新推出的“巧克力”智能手机。
8100型也是这家加拿大制造商推出的首款多媒体黑莓设备，内置数码变焦摄像头，以及全套MP3音乐和视频播放功能。
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“黑莓珍珠”是RIM针对批评者的指责而推出的新产品。这些人――其中包括许多像我这样的黑莓忠实用户――喜爱黑莓简单、安全且可靠的无线电子邮件功能，但却需要另外携带一部数码相机和数字音乐播放器，感觉很不爽。
“黑莓珍珠”宽2英寸，长4.2英寸，厚0.6英寸，重量仅为3.2盎司，看起来、摸起来、用起来都如同一部高端蓝牙手机，有着良好的接收能力和出色的音质，电池的通话续航时间超过20小时，并有着许多其它功能。
作为黑莓的长期用户（我妻子认为我“上瘾了”），我非常想评判一下，“黑莓珍珠”如何在越来越激烈的竞争中立于不败之地。它的竞争对手包括摩托罗拉(Motorola)的Q系列、诺基亚(Nokia)的E61/E62系列、Palm的Treo 750系列。我还想评估一下，RIM改变了产品设计，是否被迫牺牲了一些卓越功能――正是这些功能令其产品成为政界人士、商业领袖和社会名流的必备设备。
起初，我确实怀有疑问。我最喜欢的两大黑莓功能，一个是侧面的滚轮，它可以让我用一只手进行大部分操作，另一个是用拇指操纵的迷你型Qwerty键盘，这种键盘最早就是RIM开发的。
这两个功能“黑莓珍珠”都没有。侧面滚轮被珍珠般的导航“鼠标球”代替，黑莓8100的“黑莓珍珠”绰号也由此而得。
适应了这个鼠标球的灵敏度后，我很快就习惯了，而且开始喜欢上它，因为有了它，上下左右移动光标更加迅速、更加灵活了。
另一个巨大明显的变化，就是以SureType字词联想技术取代了迷你键盘。这种技术曾在黑莓7100和7130系列中试用，它把传统的电话按键和人们熟知的标准键盘结合起来，总共仅仅20个按键。
我曾感到黑莓7100的多字母按键和SureType技术很难熟练掌握，但我惊喜地发现，在“黑莓珍珠”的键盘上不会遇到同样的问题时。它的键盘是按照大家熟悉的标准打字键盘方式排列的，每个按键上的字母不会超过两个。同时，SureType的最新版本非常精确――在一个月的试用中，除了一些人名，我几乎没有手动纠正过一个词。
其键盘有SureType和Multi-tap两种操作方式。在Multi-tap模式下，按一次双字母键，即显示第一个字母，按两次，则显示第二个字母。多数应用程序和功能默认SureType方式，而输入电话号码和密码则默认Multi-tap方式。两者效果都非常好。
其它与众不同的特点还包括：一个2英寸、240x260像素的超亮彩屏，阅读文本非常方便；感应式背光键盘，和彩屏一样，可以根据周围光线自动调节亮度；专用“菜单”和“返回”按键；侧面还有两个用户自行设定的按键。
黑莓珍珠内置高速Strong ARM芯片、64兆闪存、可拆卸的锂电池盒以及RIM自己开发的最新版多任务操作系统。用户可以同时运行多个应用程序，并可快速而轻松地进行切换。
我的黑莓珍珠使用的是T-Mobile USA的GSM/GPRS/Edge无线网络，内置全套的应用软件，包括标准的电子邮件、日历、地址簿和网络浏览器等程序。
与其它黑莓一样，针对个人用户，黑莓珍珠支持桌面无线电邮；若企业使用了RIM的黑莓企业服务(BES)软件，它也能支持该企业的商用电邮。这款设备还提供地图导航、桌面搜索和密码保护功能，配有即时讯息软件，支持美国在线(AOL)、ICQ、MSN和雅虎(Yahoo)的即时讯息服务，此外还有一款游戏，即黑莓经典的BrickBreaker游戏。
这款黑莓带给用户的一个巨大惊喜，可能是其多媒体功能。其130万像素的内置数码相机成像清晰，同时配备5倍数码变焦、内置闪光灯和极其简单的软件程序，用户只要动用鼠标球，就可以对图片进行删除、存储、发送电子邮件或为新图片命名。
内置媒体播放器可播放存储在机内的音乐、视频、图片和铃声。黑莓珍珠设有微型SD存储卡插槽，可以加大存储量。不过，这个插槽藏在电池盒下面，这是我对该设备少有的不满之一。
尽管媒体播放控制功能有限，但音质却可与多数单纯的MP3播放器媲美。遗憾的是，与其它无线手机一样，黑莓珍珠采用的也是2.5毫米的普通手机耳机插口，而非高质量音频耳机所需的3.5毫米标准立体声插口，不过，用户可以选择转接器。
这些都是相对较小的瑕疵。总体而言，黑莓珍珠为当前和潜在的黑莓用户提供了可能需要的一切功能，同时并未在原有优势方面做出大的牺牲。
在T-Mobile USA，这款黑莓的售价为199美元（带有为期两年的服务合同），价格颇具竞争力。对RIM而言，它称得上是一件物有所值的主打产品。RIM表示，黑莓珍珠将很快投放其它市场，包括英国。
