Customer Reviews

BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 Phone, Black (T-Mobile)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I start by saying the last cell phone i owned was a motorola startac.
I was hoping someone would add a review of this phone before i bought it.
But no luck. So far i have been very impressed. the suretype takes some getting use to, and sometimes i think it would be faster to just use multi tap mode. the features are nice and the the phone is very customizeable. (changing wallpaper, icons, mving icons etc.) The web browser works very well. I have many wi-fi connections around me but they are locked systems so i changed the settings to detect mobile first. it goes much faster. it lacks a gps system. maps are available but it doesn't show you where you are. i got the browser/e-mail option and mapquest is available through that. storage is expandable to 16gb but i have only found 8gb cards. the simple word,excel,ppt are nice features. the screen does well for it's size while using those. the browser zoom in feature comes in very handy. The camera is a nice extra. Extra being the key word. I'm used to digital slr and 8mp so 2mp is just an extra to me. works well for it's size though. the roller ball seems "cheap" but i'm a guy and like things "tough". the phone comes with a 256mb card. recommend getting bigger. that's just not enough to hold music and documents. The speakers are loud. very impressive. voice dialing tries to make a good go of it. it takes some getting used to though if your not used to speaking clearly and slowly. I've had the phone for only two weeks now but sure am enjoying figuring out what all it can do. I have only been disappointed in the fact that the screen could have been made bigger given the size of the flip and space available. but i guess they needed room to show the blackberry logo and the t-mobile logo. the contact book is very impressive. you can add more information about someone than you care to know i think. over all it seems like a good smart phone with key features that you'll actually use rather than wonder why they are there. i'm still looking for a compatible e-reader for .pdb files though. hope this review helps. ps, haven't had problems with the battery either.

I upgraded to the flip from the blackberry pearl 8100, which I used for 2 years. After reading a lot of lukewarm and in my opinion, nit-picking reviews on the flip, I bought this phone anyway, and I'm pretty happy with it. I think this is an excellent phone which no one is buying. I upgraded because I had problems with the 8100 trackball, which would pick up a lot of dirt and become unresponsive. Also, I wanted to take advantage of the new blackberry features, such as wi-fi calling, great looking new OS, expandable microSD memory, and 3.5 mm headphone jack, which let me use this relatively small blackberry as my smartphone and mp3 player. Great email control, document editing, functional "leisure" features and small form factor made this the optimum choice for me above phones that were larger (Bold) or were lacking in email capabilities (iPhone). Are there things I wish were better? Sure (web browsing is slow, though better on wi-fi and for playing around it doesn't compare to the iPhone, par for the course with RIM), but overall, this phone has been underappreciated and its "lagginess" has been overstated. Finally, it looks pretty slick--I like the clock that appears on the external screen as well as the ability to preview messages without opening the phone.

This is my first Blackberry phone, so I don't have anything to compare it to except the standard cell phone that I had previously, which was a Sony Ericson (great phone also by the way).

There are some real drawbacks with this phone, such as the limited Edge Network, which definitely doesn't compete with the T-Mobile's standard network as far as coverage. I deducted one star for this, because this is an area of weakness that should be improved. That is really the one thing I wish I was different, but the benefits of this phone far outweigh that drawback. To be fair, I've talked to people with other Blackberries and this is a problem with the Blackberry network, not this particular phone.

Why I love this phone:
1) The phone is beautiful, thin and light.
2) The screen on the outside and inside show a vibrant high resolution image.
3) The phone come with a sync cable so you can easily sync you contacts, schedule as well as load music from your I-Tunes!
4) The speaker phone is phenomenal!!! The sound is CLEAR and LOUD. I don't really like to be holding a phone up to my ear all the time or have a bluetooth hanging on my ear. I don't even use my bluetooth usually in the car, but instead put the phone on speaker and slip half the phone in the visor. I work at home so I can easily speak with clients on speaker.
5) This is the only qwerty phone I know of that comes in a compact flip size.
6) Picture quality is great and I comes with a flash.
7) The phone plays stereo sound from the music library you can upload to the phone through the included headphones.
8) It's a Blackberry, so the features on the phone are impressive.
9) You can save battery life by programming the phone to go to sleep at night. I programmed mine to powers off at 11PM and back on at 6:30AM.
10) ***Now for the #1 reason I love this phone...drum roll please...WiFi network calling. For an extra $10 per month, you can have unlimited calling as long as you are in a WiFi area. I'm able to work from home and call clients all around the county though my WiFi system all day with no deduction from my minutes. The calls are crystal clear and I can take calls from my clients without ever worrying about my minutes. This represents a huge savings and convenience...absolute gold! Even the iPhone with all it's bells and whistles doesn't offer this.

I've had the phone for about two months now and it's been wonderful. I think the best thing I can say is the decision to buy this phone should be based on your lifestyle. For me, this is the best phone I could have bought.

My previous phone was the Blackberry Pearl and the switch to this Flip phone wasn't a big change other than the fact that it is sluggishly slow. Especially when I type with it, the text does not appear in real-time while I type my SMS text messages or email. Scrolling is awfully slow as well. If it were possible I would have upgraded the RAM on this phone!

Also, this phone doesn't have distinct features. You can get the LG Shine CU720 Phone, Silver (AT&T) or one of the new Sony Ericsson TM506 Black/Chrome/Amber Phone (T-Mobile) for cheaper with the same main features: Camera, video, voice recording, web browsing, music player, 4 hours talk time and so on.

Disregarding the slow processing this is a great phone to have. It runs the newest Blackberry OS. You can also use the light during video recording as a REALLY bright flashlight. Another great feature is when receiving SMS text or email, you can briefly read it on the external display without opening it. That way you know if it's from someone important. It's also got a 3.5 MM headphone jack making it a MP3 player to go, however I wish they put the jack on the bottom or top for ease of pocket placement.

Let me start off by saying that one of the reasons I'm giving this phone 5 stars is because I got it for $30 at Costco on a new 2 year T-Mobile contract. Second thing: I really wanted an iPhone (still do) but after carefully reviewing how much my family plan from AT&T was going to cost vs. T-mobile, I decided to go with this phone.

I had never owned a BB before getting the Pearl Flip, and was pretty sure I wouldn't like it after reading these reviews. To my surprise, I really, really enjoy using it.

Good things:
- Good, solid phone (reception, sound, call software, etc.)
- I thought I would not like the UI + trackball (I crave the touch screen) but you can tell BB has put 1,000,000s of cumulative hours into this design. I really like the trackball action.
- Bonus: really fine MP3 player (3.5 headphone jack (yes!), excellent sound (better than my son's iPod Touch IMO), very good software)
- Texting on this keyboard is very easy once you get the hang of it (took me ~ 2 days)
- Surprisingly solid video player. I rip content from DVDs using HandBrake on my iMac then transfer them to the SD card)
- Overall fast response from the OS. I have *not* experienced bug-i-ness with this phone. Not with the browser, email client, contacts, nothin'
- Love the size & the flip. Goes in my pocket easy and I don't worry about scratches.
- Screen though small-ish, is beautiful in terms of color & brightness
- WiFi works exceedingly well (good range, no bugs)
- T-Mobile is cheap compared to nasty AT&T contract monthly cost (my family plan + extras is $25 cheaper than AT&T) though I'd have 3G with AT&T
- Email support is just plain sweet
- Google mobile apps rock (maps is the best - even using only cell tower triangulation)

Mediocre things:
- Edge only
- Browser is somewhat lousy compared to Safari on iPhone. Not unusable though.
- Browser via edge is meh (though mobile-oriented web sites work pretty well) - I use Opera Mini when using WiFi and that's actually a pretty darn good browser experience
- Some video gets choppy if you don't compress it down well. Once compressed correctly however, it works well.
- Camera is not great, even for a 2MP smartphone

Bad things:
- No 3G
- No GPS
- Very smudge-y

Summary: I would fight someone who tried to take this phone. Total fisticuffs. For the price it's darn nice comms device. I'm not gettin' the harsh reviews left by some others. I wonder if an OS patch had fixed some bugs before I got it.

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 :)

BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 Phone, Black (T-Mobile)

Don't buy this phone. Don't do it. The technology is not ready and T-Mobile provides horrible support for the phone's many weaknesses.

Main problems:

1) Too fragile. SIM card becomes dislodged or requires resetting quite often.
2) WiFi - connectivity under the WiFi environment is sporadic. Do NOT rely on WiFi connectivity for phone calls. Your calls will be dropped. End of discussion. I have used this phone, with WiFi, at my 2 residences. Both are in moderate to major population areas and with "excellent" signal strength. The WiFi was the reason we bought these phones and have subsequently killed the service (T-Mobile charges you extra for this poorly delivered option).
3) Dropped calls. Dropped calls. Within the cities of Chicago and Albuiquerque.
4) Bluetooth malfunction. Check the forums. Bluetooth fails inexplicably and will not re-enable. T-Mobile offers only to replace phone with same model.
5) T-Mobile's effective support on this phone is to either a) have you spend hours and hours wiping the phone and reinstalling the software, applications and entering your various user data. REMEMBER...this is a smart phone. Like a computer, you will spend a good bit of time setting the thing up, that is, if you use it for more just a phone. T-Mobile's other support effort is to b) have Blackberry replace the phone.....similarly requiring gobs of your time to troubleshoot, coordinate and then set-up the replacement device.
6) Internet e-mail. My wife's phone inexplicably lost the ability to access her online e-mail. T-Mobile's suggested solution.....wipe the phone and start over. If that doesn't work (many of YOUR hours later) they'll get Blackberry to replace the phone.
7) Battery life is VERY short.
8) Browsing the phone's features is very slow. The phone reacts sluggishly to your inputs....including just dialing phone numbers. I am endlessly having to go BACK on command entry because the lag in response time caused me to sleect the wrong entry item.
9) Browser speed is slow. I mean slow to unusable. I tend to run online searches for places and things using the Google Maps application. That may sound silly, however, it's much faster than using the basic browser function on this phone.
10) In a nutshell, Blackberry is beta-testing this underpowered, previously untested smartphone and we are the guinea pigs. Nice idea packinking the PDA into this attractive little phone, however, they're not there yet. T-Mobile simply diverts all responsibility for the poor performance of the device to Blackberry.....and you.
11) Don't buy it.

When looking for a way to move away from AT&T's crappy service at my home, I discovered this Blackberry Flip at a local bestbuy which was going for free with 2 yr contract sign up. The phone felt so good in my hand that immediately bought the phone. After 18 days of use, I am writing this review- and I am still impressed with my first blackberry. I do not have data service from T-mobile or RIM but I can pretty much do anything I like to do online from my phone- because of built in wi-fi (802.11b/g, WEP/WPA). the call quality is best I have ever heard in a cellphone so is the speakerphone. Without charging I can use the phone for couple of days with moderate use of wi-fi for browsing. Only drawback so far is the long reboot time if battery is removed. BTW, local T-mobile stores does not make it mandatory to get a data plan with this purchase, unlike Amazon.

Hi. Bit of a story here.

When I got this device, it was awesome: quick, responsive, good battery life, the works. The only weird thing is that Suretype doesn't always get the correct short word. (when i type "hey", i get "get", which uses the same keys, for example)

Then, as time went by, i noticed this thing slowing down. Molasses slow. press a key and wait 3 seconds for it to respond slow.

I was very close to returning this phone, because the battery life had dropped as well. It was running out of juice in 12 hours, when the specs said it should last days in standby mode.

But then, I went to a T-Mobile store and told them about the issues.

They told me something that's mentioned on page 220 of the manual. It's in the troubleshooting section that talks about optimizing device performance.

The following steps improve battery life, AND response time.

1 is to close all applications when you're not using them. By close, it does not mean just pressing the red button used to end calls. That takes you back to the main menu, but leaves the application running in the background.

If an application (app) is left running in the background, the phone is still keeping the thing open, and computing power is used by the application.

Closing an app can usually be done in 1 of 2 ways (at least, these 2 ways take care of all the apps I've used)

1 - press the back button (the button right below the red end-call button)

2 - press the application menu key (the button with the blackberry logo below the green send-call key), and choose an option that says "close", or "End application" or whatever

I hope that helps those of you that have issues with the phone's lack of speed and low battery life.

Also, the rep mentioned one more thing about battery life.

If you're using a wi-fi unlimited plan, that uses something called UMA. UMA apparently sucks the battery dry more quickly. so she said when you're not near your wifi network (my network is at home, for instance), turn the Wi-fi calling off, and battery life will improve a lot.

This phone is great!

EDIT: I tried leaving the Wi-Fi connectivity on. It turns out that it doesn't drain the battery any faster than with the Wi-Fi connectivity off. At least, not that I can notice. It's been on for a full day, and has lost less than 1/3 of its charge. So I'd leave it on if you use it.

I just want to say RIM got it right this time. This phone is a huge improvement from the regular Pearl. First, let me say I have had many phones over the years and everyone has features I like and those I didn't like. Smart phones are a breed of their own. My first gripe about the first generation Smartphones were their size. I hated carrying around the "corporate football" as I called it. They were very heavy and always getting in the way. This new flip design is perfect. You can just put it in the pocket of your gym pants or clip it on the belt of your suit pants when at work.

They next generation after the "football" was smaller, but the downside was the microscopic keyboards!!!! I have big fingers and the Curves keyboard doesn't cut it. This flip's keyboard is double the size of the original Pearl and is fantastic for larger fingered users :) The Suretype keypad does require some getting used to, but once you use it for a week or so it ends up being faster that retyping errors on the curve! It's a trade off.. size of keys or size of phone?! I go for the smaller device.

As far as the functional aspects the phone is great. I really like the newer software from Blackberry. Very user friendly and powerful. I would suggest making the screen a wee bigger on the next model, but for viewing attachments and email/texting it's perfect.

I would certainly advise anyone looking for a compact phone with nice features (wi-fi intergrated) to consider this phone. I have terrible reception in my home office. I have had all the carriers and never been able to get a steady connection. With the built in wi-fi calling feature I am making calls all over the house...even in the basement! I love it!

Great phone for the size and price... $29 at Costco with 2 year agreement.