Blackberry 8230 Pearl Flip Review
By admin on March 2nd, 2010
Although the clamshell flip phones are not as popular as they once were, there are still many people who do prefer this type of phone. RIM has decided to cater to that group with phones like the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230.
Depending on which carrier you buy the BlackBerry 8230 BlackBerry Flip through, you will have different wireless options. With the Alltel model you do get 3G, as well as support for GPS, but this does not come with the T-Mobile model, though the latter does feature built in WiFi.
The BlackBerry Pearl 8230 Flip does come with some enhanced features. Some of the improvements that you’ll find with this BlackBerry model include updated software; you get Documents to go, and an upgraded camera. The call quality is fairly good, though there does tend to be a little background noise noticeable when no one is talking, but generally there isn’t anything to actually disrupt a conversation.
The BlackBerry model cell phones are known for their great email capabilities, and this is true of the 8230 Pearl Flip; you will get up to 10 email accounts, as well as text messaging. This mobile phone also supports a variety of different Instant Messaging clients.
The music player on the 8230 BlackBerry Pearl is good, playback gives you some great quality sound, but the video playback could be a lot better. Watching long videos on the small screen probably won’t be very appealing. Another disappointment is the lack of a quality camera. Although the 2-megapixel camera that comes included with this phone does take adequate pictures, the color is a little washed out. You will definitely want to keep a hold of your stand-alone digital camera.
Surfing the Internet with the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 is a good experience, with web pages rendering quickly, though again, the lack of screen size does make it a lot more of a challenge to read the text on web pages. The GPS does work fairly well, though it takes a few minutes to lock in on a signal, though you do get turn-by-turn directions with the BlackBerry Maps, however the maps to tend to take some time to render.
The battery life for the Pearl Flip 8230 is rated for 3.5 hours of talk time and 9 days of standby time. The battery will likely last longer if you are not a heavy user of a lot of the features that come with this phone.
The biggest problem with this phone is that some carriers don’t offer WiFi, plus there does seem to be some performance issues as far as lag.
Basically the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 is a great entry-level smartphone, plus it is very affordable, especially if you buy on contract.
