Customer Reviews

BlackBerry 8220 Flip Pearl Unlocked Phone , GPRS, EDGE, and 2 MP Camera--International Version with No Warranty

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I've been using my new Blackberry 8220 flip phone for about a week now. Here are my impressions about this phone... the pros and cons. Keep in mind that this is my first Blackberry phone, so I do not review it in comparison to any other blackberry. Instead, I compare it to other flip phones I've had. My last flip phone was the Motorola KRZR K1. This phone eats it up, and spits it out.

Pros:

-Call quality: sound quality while making and receiving calls are good. There doesn't seem to be a difference in quality between making a wifi call or network phone call (see wifi)

- Wifi: This phone has a built in wifi receiver. This means that if you have a wifi connection at home (or any unsecured wifi signal) you can browse the web with this phone (for free). The pre-installed t-mobile browser is lame (it doesn't let you browse any website you want unless you sign up for the data plan). Download the free browser "Opera" for this phone, and you can cruise any website you want.

-Wifi calling: When you are connected to a strong wifi signal... you can make calls over the wifi connection, thereby not using up your minutes on your plan... very cool!

-web browsing: Web browsing is as good as it gets on a 240 x 320 resolution screen. Again, I recommend downloading a free copy of the Opera browser. When used with a fast wifi connection, loading time for pages is surprisingly fast.


-Built in mp3 player: The mp3 player works well and sounds good, but the layout/interface could be better. (tip: use button #4,#6 to skip songs instead of using trackball) For example, when the phone is closed... you can only access volume controls. The built in standard 3.5mm headphone jack is fantastic, though! All phones should have this... I absolutely love not having to carry around an annoying adapter just to listen to my music in the car or over headphones. It's also cool that it has the ability to display album artwork :) This phone comes with a handsfree headset/stereo headphone... very cool! The included headphones sound surprisingly good too... about as good as a typical $30 set of Sony headphones.

-Screen: The screen is small but gorgeous... colors look saturated and images look very sharp.

-Camera: For a 2 megapixel camera... it works well and does a good job of automatically adjusting shutter and exposure. Color saturation and contrast could be better, though. Even on the highest resolution... images lack high contrast and sharpness. Built in flash is a nice extra.

-mp3 ringers - I really love the fact that you can use any mp3/sound file as a ring-tone, alarm tone, alert tone... etc.

-Texting: At first, I really hated the button configuration for texting. It's totally different from most phones. But once you get used to it, texting on this phone works very well and the intelligent word suggestions are pretty good at guessing what word you're typing. The ability to add your own words to the custom library is great, too. I love that when a text messagecomes, you can preview the first few lines of the on the front screen... very useful! Also, there are special status lights on the front of the phone that blinks Red on the front of the phone when you have an unread text.


-Picture texting: Photo texting seems to work relatively well, but the only limitation is that you can only add a few words of text along with the image. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the 'mms message system' or phone.

-expandable mini-SD/mini-SDHC. This is awesome for storing tons of images and music for the mp3 player... very cool! Right now, you can expand it up to a 16GB micro SDHC card and essentially have a 16gb Mp3 player in addition to a phone.


Cons:

-Battery Life: Sadly, the battery does not seem to last very long... even when the phone is only used for texting. For example, I noticed that the battery drained down to about 40% capacity from just one day of texting (no phone calls). To be fair, I do text a lot in one day (perhaps 50 a day?) Sadly it's a phone you'll probably have to charge every day even if you don't use it very often throughout the course of your day. If you're listening Blackberry, please release a Hi-capacity battery for this phone!

-Non-standard USB connector: I don't like that it has a non-standard usb connection. If you loose the cable, you'll have to get one especially made for the blackberry. They could have easily made it the standard min-usb to USB connection (but they didn't... GRrr!) Oh well, at least they got the standard 3.5mm headphone jack right.

- The whole phone is very prone to fingerprint smudging... so it ends up looking oily and kinda gross, if not cleaned like... everyday.

Conclusion: The positive features greatly outweigh the few negative things about this phone. This phone has an impressive array of features... considering how small the device is. It's really a tiny computer in addition to a phone, and it does most things pretty darn well. If you're into flip phones, and want one that does more than probably any other one out there...then this one may be the phone for you. I just wish that the battery on this baby lasted longer! Oh well, even tiny computers take lots of juice I guess :)

Fun tip: You can get the game Pac-man for this phone for free online :)

The Blackberry Pearl Flip is an excellent Blackberry option for those of us who need our corporate or web email but don't want to lug something around attached to the belt. The appearance and design is exceptional and the functionality is equally excellent as expected from all Blackberry devices.

The Good:

- Small, compact design, full Blackberry functionality in your pocket.
- Excellent design (look).
- Large keys.
- Decent camera.
- Blackberry's latest OS.
- WiFi.

The Bad:

- Small screen.
- Non-customizable outer LCD screen.

The Ugly:

- Nothing.

For the sake of infomation, this is my second Blackberry owned. Previously, I have used the Blackberry Curve 8300 series for over a year. Prior to that, I was on the Motorola Q for several months as well. While my Peal Flip is company issued, I don't look like a corporate soldier when I'm away from the office. If you're going for the "I'm an executive" public image, then don't purchase/choose the Pearl Flip. If you're looking for Blackberry's functionality in a discrete pocketable phone, the Blackberry Pearl Flip is an excellent choice.

*** I also purchased the OEM Blackberry Leather Pocket case for the phone. Excellent choice for the phone, keeps the profile thin and looks fantastic. Just say no to belt-attached phones!! ***

I bought this phone as a temporary replacement to my AT&T iPhone. I'd never had a blackberry before, and've always been intrigued by them. I'd heard good things about this phone, and on "paper" it's a great phone for the price: wifi, gps, qwerty keyboard, flip phone, and quadband GSM.

However, I've learned the hardway that my iPhone data plan is not really compatible with this T-Mobile phone:
1) the data settings are already hardcoded to T-mobile, so changing them has been an unsurmountable challenge for me
2) Wifi browser is also hardcoded to only work with T-Mobile Hotspots, although I heard you can download a separate browser that will work with all wifi

Things I like
- LED indicator for new text messages, missed calls. (I really wish more phones would have this feature)
- Talk-time battery life, can easily go 4-6 hours of talk time+3 days of standby without any issue
- a typing game on the phone, cheesy, but fun
- standard 2.5mm headset connector (and it comes with the phone!)
- USB charging

Other things I don't like
- the camera. it's a tease. there is a flash and digital zoom, but the picture quality still sucks
- the clamshell joint seems to be a little loose
- the external LCD screen is made of a soft plastic, great for getting scratched

Bottom line: If you are a T-Mobile BB subscriber, then this phone should be fantastic as a secondary or "evening" phone (you laugh, but if you're shopping for this on amazon then I'm probably not too far off target). For other GSM users, this is still a solid offering for a smartphone but maybe something like a Windows Mobile phone might work better for you.

The phone is sold from T-mobile here in the USA and comes in red and black, the phone is very light, the phone includes everything you know and love from blackberries including wifi, pin messaging, web, email and other pda-like functions. The 8220 runs on the 4.6 OS but the stock software from T-mobile 4.6.0.180 can be slow and jerky because it runs on the older arm 312Mhz processor but I would recommended anyone with this phone to upgrade to 4.6.0.122 which seems to be the fastest most stable version thus far. The phone doesn't really live up to the build quality of other blackberries but many can overlook that and accept the fact that it is the first flip from blackberry and they did a good job with it.

Operating system: 4/5
Build Quality: 3/5
Features: 4/5
Battery Life: 5/5
Overall: 4/5

I've been using my new Blackberry 8220 flip phone for about a week now. Here are my impressions about this phone... the pros and cons. Keep in mind that this is my first Blackberry phone, so I do not review it in comparison to any other blackberry. Instead, I compare it to other flip phones I've had. My last flip phone was the Motorola KRZR K1. This phone eats it up, and spits it out.

Pros:

-Call quality: sound quality while making and receiving calls are good. There doesn't seem to be a difference in quality between making a wifi call or network phone call (see wifi)

- Wifi: This phone has a built in wifi receiver. This means that if you have a wifi connection at home (or any unsecured wifi signal) you can browse the web with this phone (for free). The pre-installed t-mobile browser is lame (it doesn't let you browse any website you want unless you sign up for the data plan). Download the free browser "Opera" for this phone, and you can cruise any website you want.

-Wifi calling: When you are connected to a strong wifi signal... you can make calls over the wifi connection, thereby not using up your minutes on your plan... very cool!

-web browsing: Web browsing is as good as it gets on a 240 x 320 resolution screen. Again, I recommend downloading a free copy of the Opera browser. When used with a fast wifi connection, loading time for pages is surprisingly fast.


-Built in mp3 player: The mp3 player works well and sounds good, but the layout/interface could be better. (tip: use button #4,#6 to skip songs instead of using trackball) For example, when the phone is closed... you can only access volume controls. The built in standard 3.5mm headphone jack is fantastic, though! All phones should have this... I absolutely love not having to carry around an annoying adapter just to listen to my music in the car or over headphones. It's also cool that it has the ability to display album artwork :) This phone comes with a handsfree headset/stereo headphone... very cool! The included headphones sound surprisingly good too... about as good as a typical $30 set of Sony headphones.

-Screen: The screen is small but gorgeous... colors look saturated and images look very sharp.

-Camera: For a 2 megapixel camera... it works well and does a good job of automatically adjusting shutter and exposure. Color saturation and contrast could be better, though. Even on the highest resolution... images lack high contrast and sharpness. Built in flash is a nice extra.

-mp3 ringers - I really love the fact that you can use any mp3/sound file as a ring-tone, alarm tone, alert tone... etc.

-Texting: At first, I really hated the button configuration for texting. It's totally different from most phones. But once you get used to it, texting on this phone works very well and the intelligent word suggestions are pretty good at guessing what word you're typing. The ability to add your own words to the custom library is great, too. I love that when a text messagecomes, you can preview the first few lines of the on the front screen... very useful! Also, there are special status lights on the front of the phone that blinks Red on the front of the phone when you have an unread text.


-Picture texting: Photo texting seems to work relatively well, but the only limitation is that you can only add a few words of text along with the image. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the 'mms message system' or phone.

-expandable mini-SD/mini-SDHC. This is awesome for storing tons of images and music for the mp3 player... very cool! Right now, you can expand it up to a 16GB micro SDHC card and essentially have a 16gb Mp3 player in addition to a phone.


Cons:

-Battery Life: Sadly, the battery does not seem to last very long... even when the phone is only used for texting. For example, I noticed that the battery drained down to about 40% capacity from just one day of texting (no phone calls). To be fair, I do text a lot in one day (perhaps 50 a day?) Sadly it's a phone you'll probably have to charge every day even if you don't use it very often throughout the course of your day. If you're listening Blackberry, please release a Hi-capacity battery for this phone!

-Non-standard USB connector: I don't like that it has a non-standard usb connection. If you loose the cable, you'll have to get one especially made for the blackberry. They could have easily made it the standard min-usb to USB connection (but they didn't... GRrr!) Oh well, at least they got the standard 3.5mm headphone jack right.

- The whole phone is very prone to fingerprint smudging... so it ends up looking oily and kinda gross, if not cleaned like... everyday.

Conclusion: The positive features greatly outweigh the few negative things about this phone. This phone has an impressive array of features... considering how small the device is. It's really a tiny computer in addition to a phone, and it does most things pretty darn well. If you're into flip phones, and want one that does more than probably any other one out there...then this one may be the phone for you. I just wish that the battery on this baby lasted longer! Oh well, even tiny computers take lots of juice I guess :)

Fun tip: You can get the game Pac-man for this phone for free online :)

For anyone expecting this miscreant device to act like a Blackberry, forget it. It has so much less capacity than other models that it barely even functions as a telephone.

The device is frequently frozen for up to 30 seconds as it runs background programs and "thinks," to the point where I'm terrified of ever trying to use it in an emergency. It takes up to 10 seconds to recognize that I've started (and finished!) dialing a phone number before it registers the keytones. And often it doesn't acknowledge the first digit, but instead treats that digit as if it were just a button I pushed to wake up the phone, so I spend an enormous amount of time cancelling calls and trying to dial again correctly. Sometimes, mysteriously, the phone actually connects the call before the keytones kick in...

Web browsing is no better. The browser constantly crashes, and the only way the crash can be cleared is by breaking out the battery. Restarting the device after replacing said battery takes forever. In one final annoying feature, there's no way to silence or turn down the volume on the "dialing now" keytones, so the phone sings like an old fax machine. I've spent hours on the phone with my provider to troubleshoot, and ultimately I've replaced it -- and the new 8220 has all the same problems.

In short, it's a godawful piece of junk. Which is too bad, because when it *does* work, it's a pleasure.

I got this phone for my birthday. At first, I loved it. I would have given it 4 stars. I mean, it shut off every once and a while. Well, exactly 6 months later, it went into a constant reboot cycle. When I tried fixing it with software updates and memory wipes, it just up and died. Wouldn't turn on, wouldn't even give me a reboot cycle anymore. I took it to the T-mobile place. Replaced it right then and there. As I was leaving the college-town I got it from (Auburn, War Eagle!), it rebooted on me. Okay, well I figured it was a new phone and it was just updating or something. No, in fact, as time went on it became more frequent. And by the time it had become just a flat out inconvenience, RIM changed their replacement policy. I could no longer take it into the T-mobile store and replace it. What a bummer! He gave me a number to call and try and work something out. I decided to wait a few weeks and see what happened just in case the new battery I had bought on Amazon would fix it. Nope, it sure didn't. The phone still wasn't fixed. So I took it back to see what one last person could try and do to help me. He said to clear the cookies, the messages, and the, as he called it, "crap log", which I'm assuming is just a log of every process the phone performs. I did that and it stayed good for an hour. Then it rebooted yet again. And, to my luck, the store closed within that hour.... WTF... So I'm still stuck with my piece of doo doo phone. Please don't make the same mistake I did. Don't get this phone. It's a waste of money. And if you already have it, I recommend you get it replaced. Its not worth the time or effort to fix the thing. I just want a phone that works. And let me tell ya. THIS ISN'T IT.

Wow...what can I say? My husband I both 'upgraded' to these phones (I got the red, he got the black) so we could use the Hot Spots in our home due to poor cell coverage in our area. I assure you these phones have been nothing short of a nightmare. BOTH phones power off randomly with a full charge. We have been trying to call each other to no avail not realizing our phones shut off. Have to pop battery out and back in to get it working again. Sometimes it will be fully charged then dead 5 hours later. Had both phones replaced twice and also were sent new batteries. This phone is a LEMON to be avoided at all costs! Finally were able (with threat of leaving our cell provider) to upgrade again to Blackberry Pearls. Hoping these work better!

I got my blackberry 8220 flip almost a year ago and wish I would have picked something else. I've had the battery replaced twice and my 3rd phone replacement should be here in a few days. It goes dead in the middle of a call and I have to wait for it to restart. My husband was trying to call me on his way home from work the other day and it died, everytime it would restart, I'd call him and it would ring once, then restart again. I called Tmobile and they determined it's a known software problem with this phone and are replacing it again. The next day, it worked 1 time then wouldn't do anything but start and restart and restart again. I couldn't turn it off, had to take the battery out. I would never get another one of these again. The only thing I liked was the rollerball. Oh well, on to the next phone.

version english:
do not buy this phone to UnlockedCellPhoneKings seller, I buy it because I saw that his design was very nice, I'm loving the BlackBerrys and recently I had one, they send the battery mistake, then i buy the battery it might not I was able to activate the blackberry bis, try contacting the seller a million times and only told me that if i remove the negative feedback of the site would respond, as I did and he dont answered me for the warranty, he just said that I had to send the phone to usa to cover the warranty and I'm from Venezuela so I can not, the phone features are very poor, despite the camera flash that has focused far too bad, the sound is not good, the only thing that has good phone is that it is nice but is useless! I do not recommend this phone, this phone sucks!
version spanish:
No le compres este telefono al vendedor UnlockedCellPhoneKings, yo se lo compre porque me parecio que su diseño era muy lindo y femenino, ademas yo amo los blackberrys y recientemente tuve uno, el vendedor me envio el telefono con una bateria erronea, no encendia cuando lo recibi, luego yo compre la bateria adecuada y me encendio sin problemas, pero cuando intente activar el servicio BIS de blackberry el telefono nunca levanto la señal en EDGE, yo se lo comente al vendedor y el me dijo que si quitaba el comentario negativo que hice hacia el, el me resolveria el problema hasta me enviaria una bateria nueva, pero no fue asi, una vez que quite el comentario pocas veces me respondio y no resolvio mi problema, solo me dijo que tenia que enviar el telefono a Estados Unidos y yo soy de Venezuela enviarlo a estados unidos me saldria muy costoso, por lo cual solo le dije que se encargara de liberar el imei del telefono cosa que tampoco hizo, fui estafada y robada por este vendedor y realmente quitando todo eso las caracteristicas del telefono son muy pobres, la camara es malisima tiene mal enfoque de lejos, el sonido es bueno pero de resto es un telefono inservible, no recomiendo este telefono mucho menos para la gente latina ya que se nos hace imposible hacer cubrir la garantia y este es el unico modelo que no se puede reparar, odio este telefono es la peor compra que he hecho en amazon!