UK mobile phone reviews - BlackBerry Pearl 8120 Review

Your BlackBerry Pearl 8120 Reviews

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Reviewer: Jacob - Donny, UK
Date: 28th Jul 2010

I love it

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Reviewer: Jason D - Maidenhead, UK
Date: 17th May 2010

The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is a good phone to use if you are new to BlackBerry.

The phone is nice & light, good music playback.

Email is easy to setup via BlackBerry.

I am on Orange PAYG, the BIS costs £5 per month.

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Reviewer: K Hickson - UK
Date: 1st May 2010

When I decided to convert to contract, I knew I wanted a Blackberry, although my heart was set on a Curve, I was talked into buying a sleeker yet 'still as modern & efficient phone', rubbish.

Although I do love my Pearl, as I am on an Orange contract I am unable to use MMS, Internet (other than wifi) use messenger & download applications, although when researched into this, the reason behind this is purely because I didn't purchase a certain add on pack, after being conned £25 a month for the next 2 years, I obviously disagreed to this extra bundle.

Although Orange have been good to me in other ways, as the scrolling button has fallen out of 4 of the handsets that I have had, yet Orange was happy to give me a new handset straight away, which was very convenient, although the frequent fault of this occurring is begging to annoy me.

I would happily buy a Blackberry again, as I adore them, but never again a Pearl due to the old fashioned theme & lack of up to date software which the Curve provides, the phone I originally wanted.

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Reviewer: Rachel - Suffolk, UK
Date: 12th Feb 2010

I absolutely love this phone! I have had it for 3 months now & I don't know how on earth I got on without it!

It has everything I could possibly ask for & more. Fantastic if you use Google calendar as it automatically imports everything to the calendar on your phone (also for those of you who do Facebook, it does the same thing).

I love it. So much so, that I am worried about wearing it out & not being able to get a replacement! I waited for a long time to get the Pearl as it wasn't available in shops more recently. However, I got a limited edition purple one from Orange in November 2009 & it was well worth the wait!

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Reviewer: Stephen S - Orkney, UK
Date: 10th Feb 2010

After having this phone for only 3 days the volume button packs up! Nobody can hear me speak when I make a call & I also can't listen to my music! Also trying to add apps on it was OK however they did not work, in particular facebook & googlemail! Very poor, worst phone I've ever had BEWARE blackberry is rubbish! Trust Samsung OR Nokia!

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Reviewer: Bob - Liverpool, UK
Date: 9th Feb 2010

Had my Pearl almost a year now, & I have had Nokia before, think they are great phones. The Pearl caught my eye good price as I am on PAYG, Orange, & It was time for a change. Some good some bad features etc listed below, but I am wanting to get rid now, not so happy with it & would not I think get another one.

Good.
- Camera, flash zoom, quality.
- Front menu layout clear easy to get to applications.
- Style, nice combination of colour & chrome looks good.
- Leather case comes with it.
- Internet, hotmail etc good connection & works well.

Bad.
- Side buttons.
- Keeps going off for no reason.
- Settings complicated & strange wording used to describe the functions.
- Voice dial rubbish.
- Roller ball sticks sometimes.
- Texting not direct & straight forward fiddly.

One poor thing for me is the phone goes off, not pattern to it at all just off. Sometimes it will restart itself & other you have to do a battery out & back in job. This for me is getting worse! The other functions I am unhappy with is the menus, not very use friendly for me, to change small things you have to translate the language, & then find the function. It does have quite a few options available give it that, but you need a translator, & time to trawl through. I also find the folders poor.

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Reviewer: Paul Oates - Darlington, UK
Date: 22nd Nov 2009

Where do I start, initially a good phone but over the first few days I was daft enough to use this device then it would periodically power down during use which resulted in me having to remove & reinsert the battery & start again, this happened 4 times in the first week (which incidentally was the only week I used it) Also when callers rang me it would not always connect the call when I pressed the green button, resulting in a right carry on. However the Internet & email part of the phone was excellent & no issues what so ever.

Now for the network provider, Orange. I was told by a member of staff in my local Orange shop the phone was not defective, a conclusion made after she made a call to some techno woman in their customer services department. After requesting a full refund because of the phone was not working correctly she refused saying their policy is not to do refunds for mobile phones purchased only warranty exchanges, which in fairness to Orange I can see where they are coming from as most networks probably have the same policy. It was being accused of lying & the store girl's I did not like. I have now calmed down but I have reinserted my sim card into my Nokia 6500 slider, an excellent mobile phone & I am currently in the process of transferring my 30 day sim contract to PAYG & getting rid of the pearl in order to reclaim some of my money. The less money I give Orange the better is now my stance. As for the blackberry pearl 8120. One simple word. AVOID.

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Reviewer: Laura - UK
Date: 3rd Nov 2009

I have had this phone for 3 days & I love it. I am a teenager so yes this phone is not just for business workers. It looks amazing & the indigo colour makes all the girls want one. I love the fact it doesn't look like a huge calculator, & instead it is sleek & slips easily as any other phone into my pocket & handbag. I also love that you can put it on standby which is fab.

The QWERTY keys have some getting used to, but by using it I have already got the hang of it. Internet can sometimes be slow, but otherwise pretty good. The millions of applications you can download for it is great, you will never get bored, if you do simply download a new app :).

Easy to transfer pictures & music! I have had a couple of problems with it as occasionally the phone turns itself off, once when I was in a call. However I contacted Orange & they suggested taking it to the store. When I did this it was set right although it turned off once more, so I asked for a new handset, which they happily gave, SORTED.

Every phone has problems so you're never going to be 100% satisfied.

Don't ever want to go back to another phone, for the price, AMAZING.

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Reviewer: Helen - Taunton, UK
Date: 8th Jun 2009

Hi everyone,

Take this as a warning on 2 points, firstly I bought a Blackberry Pearl 8120 online from Orange beginning of April 2009, since May I have had nothing but problems with it. The phone dropped out while I was on a call & it would not charge & there was no power to it.

Orange sent me a replacement handset, still no joy, Orange then sent me another battery, phone worked for 2 days then exactly the same thing happened again, no power & unable to use the phone.

Orange then sent me another replacement handset. You got it, no joy, no power to phone & no good.

I have to say I am absolutely disgusted with Orange's customer service too, I now have a phone that doesn't work & Orange are refusing to send me a new phone (different make - won't touch Blackberry ever again) but are saying they are happy to send me a reconditioned phone of a different make so that Orange aren't out of pocket!

BEWARE. Blackberry Pearl 8120, unreliable expensive phone & as for Orange, very disappointed in them & their attitude to their 'so called excellent customer service', don't touch them with a barge pole is my advice.

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Reviewer: Siance - The North, UK
Date: 5th Oct 2008

My first Berry & I am a convert. I would never go back to standard mobiles after this, & I've been through plenty of Nokia's & a few Sony's. I wanted a phone that would deal with emails but still look like a phone, & not resemble holding a large calculator up to your ear in a Look! I've a PDA, me! Way either.

The QWERTY keyboard took a bit of getting used to, my first foray into texting was interesting to say the least. The trackball makes screen navigation quick. SureType which is BB's version of predictive text makes creating texts & emails easy & fast. People with large fingers may struggle though!

The good thing about SureType is the device learns words thus avoiding it choosing random words from your letter selection. For those who prefer text, a multi tap option is there.

BB's desktop manager is very user friendly, & although it's a cable connection it's so much more efficient in data transfer than the comedy PC Suite. Plug your berry in, & back up data to your PC, ALL DATA in seconds.

As for tunes, never pay for a ringtone again! Download your favourite MP3 straight from your PC. The media card holds plenty of stuff, videos, podcasts, music formats etc. It's like a mini windows media player. The roxio software means you just click & drag songs onto your berry via the desktop manager & it takes literally seconds, without failure.

There's a Dictaphone built in called Voice Notes. The device has a standard headphone jack too, so no clumsy additional cables. Camera is good quality, & pictures are easily moved to & from PC.

There are lots of applications you can download from berry sites. The best one for me is the calendar function, you can sync it with Google calendar, so any appointments you put on PC or berry are updated to each other, to allow viewing on either format.

Battery life is good on mine & I never turn it off, I charge it from my laptop every 4 days or so. I holster it when not in use, so that puts it into shut down mode & saves some juice. I like the little discrete red light that you've new mail, text, missed call etc. When you're using Bluetooth with another device, the light's a cool blue colour (obviously! )

One childish enhancement I'd like is to have the choice of a coloured trackball. Some of the other berry's have this, so why not the 8120 :- ( But that is my only complaint!

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Reviewer: Zuhaib - London, UK
Date: 18th Aug 2008

I have waited for almost 2 years & then finally I found the perfect phone. Fully packed with great features.

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Reviewer: Ted - Fla, US
Date: 12th Aug 2008

Have only had the Blackberry for five days but I can honestly say it is the best mobile phone I have ever had.

The Pro's have been noted by so many other reviews it would only be redundant to list them.

Con, the only thing I can find is the battery life on my unit is not terrific. T Mobile is sending me another battery, so will see if it is the battery or the nature of the unit.

I would recommend this to anyone. A superbly built phone that works.

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Reviewer: Bz - London, UK
Date: 9th May 2008

It is a very versatile & user friendly phone on the whole. The good bits are almost all covered here by other users. Here are some of the bad bits I have found through 8 month's heavy use.

Usable internal memory is much smaller than 8100.

Does not support any of the far eastern languages, unlike 8100, even the names of roaming mobile operators are rendered into black squares;

It happened twice already in the past two weeks that the handset wiped out all emails & texts without any warning. Anyone else had the same problem?

Voice calls received thru the internal handset speaker are poor quality making some of the sound unintelligible. Use hands-free supplied if you want to hear every sound uttered from the other end.

In summary, it looks the firmware supplied with the handset has quite a few bugs that have yet to be ironed out.

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Reviewer: Russell J B - Leeds, UK
Date: 6th May 2008

Having been a Windows Mobile user since the days of the first Orange SPV way back in 2001, trust me when I tell you I know all about patience & disappointment.

Welcome to a brand new world which is the Blackberry Pearl 8120, smooth interface, intuitive design, & a confidence inspiring everyday experience.

All I will say is if your one of the people still waiting for Microsoft to get it right, stop dreaming & just get one of these, as soon as you fire it up & configure it the way you want you'll just know it was the right decision, that's all I'll say.

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Reviewer: Shelley - UK
Date: 17th Apr 2008

I LOVE IT! Definitely sticking with the Blackberry family from now on. Looks nice & handles nice. Just nice!

Bad points it occasionally erases SMS inbox. But even though it's annoying it stops a build up of 6 month old messages! Xx.

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Reviewer: Mike - Kent, UK
Date: 22nd Mar 2008

Love the phone. Had the 8100 for a year. This one has a better camera & video. The trackball still gives me grief but I am a heavy user & buy new trackballs from eBay as O2 say they're not available.

The specs say it can open PDF files but this is not the case. It opens them as jpeg files that are too tiny to see.

Handango do a PDF converter but it's expensive.

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Reviewer: Amrita - Liverpool, UK
Date: 5th Mar 2008

Excellent Phone.

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Reviewer: Are B - UK
Date: 5th Mar 2008

I've had mine a few weeks now & am well pleased. Apart from email etc it's simply a really good phone! It replaces my Sony W950i & to be honest it makes me realise it's shortcoming! Before that I had an N80.

What I like:
- It's small & fits in my pocket.
- When I am on a call it doesn't look like I am talking to a calculator :).
- It's light.
- It looks good.
- It's reliable, i.e. it doesn't crash every time you open an email or something.
- Good call quality (incoming & outgoing).
- It charges off USB. Means you can recharge it just about anywhere.
- the screen is nice, clear, crisp & bright enough to use outdoors.
- It's easy to set up & interfaced with everything it should seamlessly (so far).
- Navigation with the tracker ball (pearl) is super quick when you get used to it.
- SureType the predictive speller, it seems to be much more accurate than a regular mobile as there are only 1 or 2 letters per key.
- It feels really well built (apart from a slightly flimsy battery cover).
- the speaker sounds good for phone calls.
- Fast start up (the W950i took maybe 2 minutes from power on).
- You can configure the side keys as shortcuts.
- Listen to MP3's from the memory card.
- Use any MP3 as a ringtone & alarm.
- It's got a standard connection for headphones, no extra cables or connectors required.
- Fast switching of applications, for example if you're on a call & need to pass on someone's number you can easily swap to the phone book to look it up.
- Easy & accurate sync with outlook calendar, tasks & contacts.
- PC software is simple & just works (in comparison to Sony).
- Comes with software to convert MP4's & movies to fit on the memory card.
- Comes with 1GB micro SD to store music etc & it's easily upgradeable.
- Email, it just works (apart from no categories, folders, like you can do in Outlook). But it is great for staying in touch & dealing with any burning issues.
- Link from an email to the web.
- It's fast downloading from the email server & the web. It's actually quicker at this than the 3G w950i which I don't quite understand.
- It's got Wi-Fi, handy in the office or home for getting on the web. You can set it to try & use Wi-Fi first & if that's not available then it uses the mobile network.
- Lots of third party apps you can download.
- I can use it as a modem for my laptop.
- It's free with O2 on a 12m contract.


What I don't like:
- the battery. On a heavy use day (lots of email, browsing, Wi-Fi) it goes from 100 to 10% in a day. At least you get lots of warning & an extra battery isn't too expensive.
- Vibrate, it doesn't continue to vibrate when ringing. It vibrates from 1 to 3 times which you can configure but that's it.
- Using it as a modem isn't as fast as a 3G phone.
- Internet email accounts (e.g. Googlemail) only get pushed approx every 15 minutes. This isn't configurable.
- Some websites (mainly flash intensive ones) don't display properly. But for normal stuff like checking if a flight has landed or the weather, it's great.
- No auto key lock. But you can download one for free.
- Supplied headphones are poor for music & are uncomfortable for me.
- Sound quality with good quality headphones isn't as good as an iPod with the same phones.
- Mine's on O2 which means a logo on the front doing their advertising.

Overall, I'd give it 5 STARS. If I was happy to carry a phone & a Blackberry I'd get a Curve for the bigger keyboard & screen. But I am not. So I didn't. Overall this is a great small phone with a blackberry squeezed in! Highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Mike - London, UK
Date: 22nd Feb 2008

Agreed. Fantastic device! Wins over most phones anyway without the fact it does your emails as well.

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Reviewer: Vonne Austin - London, UK
Date: 8th Feb 2008

This mobile phone is the best of all phones. What can I say other than this phone is absolutely awesome. The Blackberry Pearl 8120 in my opinion is flawless.



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