Here's a snap shot into my frustration. This is not an uncommon problem and not the first time I've experienced these kind of woes from a cell phone, however it's the first time I've had these kind of problems for a phone that's gotten such rave reviews and praise, The Blackberry Pearl.
So I got my new Blackberry Pearl home and started checking out all its options... I immediately noticed the things others have said, this is a very attractive, relatively fast, phone that is user friendly. That was until I tried the web browser that comes with the Blackberry Pearl.
I immediately started to miss the Opera Mini browser. So I went over to Opera's website and was happy to see the Blackberry Pearl is supported. I downloaded Opera Mini and then proceeded to use the Blackberry Desktop Application manager to load Opera Mini into the phone. The process takes a long time, a very long time as it was install Opera Mini I noticed it was removing quite a few other applications (I had not requested to remove anything), about 10 minutes later (yes, it took that long), the phone sort of rebooted itself. I discover the Opera icon is now available, but the browser
that came with the phone is now gone.
I try to use the Opera browser and no luck... it runs, but it can't connect. I comb this newsgroup and other on-line resources only to find that I need to change from WAP to ISP, that sounds familure as I had to do it on an old SmartPhone I had, the difference here is that BlackBerry does not have documented how to do this....
So I'm thinking, well this really sucks what next? I call Cingular/ at&t and they are unable to help me, not only that they are rude... So next I turn to the Blackberry website.... Blackberry.com has lots of support documents, of course none of them help me and if I want to contact support for anything I need some kind of subscription account....
Suddenly I realize: this is what I get for buying a consumer phone from a company that is entirely geared for corporate products. RIM (company that produces the Blackberry line of products) has no option for me.
At this point, I just want back the applications the phone came with, so I uninstall Opera Mini, it uninstalls just fine, but unfortunately the Blackberry Browser is gone, and gone are a few other Internet related apps on the phone.
It's apparent the "Blackberry Desktop Manager" running on Windows XP is the responsible for this problem as I saw it removing the applications as it was installing Opera, I questioned then what the hell it was doing, but I had no choice but to let if finish.
Disgusted, I look for a way to "hard reset" the Blackberry Pearl to get it back to the condition it was in when it came out of the box. This option is available on all phones, but not the Blackberry Pearl.
So now it appears due to software engineering problem (the Blackberry Desktop Manager for Windows removing pre-installed "firmware" from the handset when using the Application Loader) and a hardware engineering problem sense the phone has no reset.
To say I'm annoyed is an understatement. Blackberry has an outstanding reputation in the corporate world and this phone has gotten a lot of positive press. I suppose if you're the kind of person who will never install applications like Google Maps or Opera Mini, this phone will make you happy, but I find lack of a "hard reset" feature and lack of any kind of support from the manufacture a real problem.
My quest for "the perfect" phone continues... All I really want is a phone that "just works" that I can also load applications into and perform some kind of restore to get it back to the state it was in when I bought it....apparently that's an impossible task for the Blackberry engineers who spent three years creating the Pearl (which btw doesn't have a power on button either).
Anyway, if you're a professional thinking the Pearl is a the Lexus of cell phones, I would just say there are some real problems preventing this phone from being considered a luxury device. I would classify these as serious problems that should have been worked out before the phone went into consumers hands and this device has been out quite a while.
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