4. Blackberry Pearl Applications

Getting started with a BlackBerry is simple; you run the enterprise activation if your company has the BlackBerry Enterprise Server or setup your account with your mobile network's portal if not. Getting the hang of a BlackBerry takes a little longer and there are shortcuts even experienced users don't know. The new Setup Wizard is a nice touch; while you're filling in your name and picking your time zone, you get a typing tutorial and a list of useful shortcuts. The wizard stays in the application list unless you hide it, so you can go back for hints. Hiding and moving icons up and down in the list is much simpler than on other models; the options are right there on the menu. You can also switch the main menu to a Today screen view or a vertical menu.

BlackBerry is synonymous with email. While you only get IMAP folders if you're using the Blackberry Enterprise Server (or third-party add-ons), even without running your own server you get seamless push email. Messages download quickly because they're compressed; individual emails are truncated at 2K but only very long emails will be larger (because of the compression) and as you scroll to the bottom the rest of the message loads automatically. Attachments don't download automatically to save space, but again they do download quickly and you can view images, PDFs and office documents (there are plenty of third party applications for editing documents). You can have up to ten email accounts on the Pearl and text messages show up in the same inbox. If you're not using Blackberry Enterprise Server, you can synchronize contacts and calendar events from your PC with the BlackBerry Desktop software.

Synchronize contacts and calendar or install applications from your desktop.

Which IM client you get on the Pearl depends on which mobile operator you get it from. As well as BlackBerry Messenger it supports Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AOL, MSN and ICQ. The Web browser supports most standards from SVG to JavaScript, although not all sites work flawlessly. In North America the Pearl comes with BlackBerry Maps which gives you driving directions and maps for contacts from the address book.

Unlike several recent smartphones, the Pearl isn't a 3G device, but it supports EDGE as well as GPRS. That makes for a cheaper data plan and the compression does speed things up, but you'll be waiting for large Web pages to load.

Even with the extra applications, navigating is still straightforward and there's only one level of icons to scroll through so you don't get lost in sub-menus. Search covers messages, calendar, contacts, tasks and memos, although if you search inside the email application you get extra options like searching for all the messages from one sender.