The BlackBerry Pearl 3G Vs. the BlackBerry Style

When it comes to choosing a simple design and affordable BlackBerry, customers have two great choices: the BlackBerry Pearl 3G and the BlackBerry Style. The Peal is a candy bar style phone while the Style is a flip phone with a full QWERTY keyboard; both feature full BlackBerry features. Both phones are easy to use and look great. Read below to see which one is best for your needs.

BlackBerry Peal 3G Pros

Design- When you think of BlackBerry the first thing that usually comes to mind are the large, full keyboard smartphones. However, the Pearl does not feature a full QWERTY keyboard, but rather uses SureType, which picks words based on what you are typing with the compressed keyboard. Normally I do not put this in the pros category, but the Peals SureType feature works very well for sending short texts and emails.

Battery Life-Battery life is rated at 5 hours of talk time and 18 hours of standby time. In practice, the phone gets about the rated times, but varies depending on volume and network coverage. What I mean by this is that 3G networks drain battery faster than EDGE.

Size- The last thing we want in our pockets is a bulky cell phone, those went away in the early 2000's. The Pearl is very small, measuring only half of an inch thick and weighing less than 3.5 ounces. In fact, the phones size is just right for carrying in your pocket without feeling weighted down.

BlackBerry Peal 3G Cons

Camera-The Pearl features the previous 3.2MP camera, which was featured on the Bold 9700, Curve 8900 and the like. The camera is decent, but does not compare to the 5MP one on the Style.

Basic- Users who want a basic BlackBerry with functionality will love the Pearl. However, someone looking for a phone for texting, email and internet will dislike the small screen and lack of QWERTY keyboard.

BlackBerry Style 9670 Pros

Keyboard- A full QWERT keyboard on a flip phone is an excellent idea, thank you RIM. The keyboard is spaced similar to Bold 9700's keyboard, which makes typing text and email messages effortless.

OS- The Style features the new BlackBerry 6 OS, which is a huge upgrade over the previous version. The menu pages are slicker, everything is cleaner and it is what you expect when you purchase a premium smartphone. I have found that it is less buggy than the OS 5, but longer tests would determine if the OS has few bugs overall.

Design- Flip phones were quickly becoming something of the past; however, RIM brought it back. Previously the flip phone design was a pain because of the lack of a keyboard, but there is no disadvantage here. The flip design also protects the inner screen from scratches or scuffs, which is great for anyone who brings their phone everywhere.

Camera-The 5MP camera is great for capturing photos on the go. The resolution is decent for a smartphone and is on par with the higher priced competition.

BlackBerry Style 9670 Cons

Battery Life-There are few cons with the Style; however, if we had to pick one, it would be the battery. The battery life lasts about 4.5 hours when using the phone and 10.5 days on standby. This is great, but is much less than the Peal.

Sources:

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberrystyle/#

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberrypearl3G/