1. bowwie's Avatar
    I've owned a Pearl 8130 for one year and just got a Tour yesterday. Here are my initial impressions:

    Reception In my side-by-side testing, reception appears about equal between the Tour and Pearl. This is a bit of a disappointment because I've always found the Pearl's RF lacking, esp. when compared to great RF phones like the Moto E815.

    Ergonomics The Tour fits well in my hand and pocket. It's significantly heavier than my Pearl, which is fine for hand-holding but a bit of a nuisance when in my pocket, esp. when wearing shorts.

    Keyboard For two-handed typing of text, the keyboard excels. The keys are molded so that they slant left for your left thumb and slant right for your right thumb. The system works well although I think the keys are a bit too pointy at their peak, making typing a little cumbersome, esp. for the middle keys like T,G, and H.

    The same design feature which makes two-handing typing work well unfortunately makes one-handed typing a bit difficult. The problem is when you need to press the keys that are slanted opposite of the hand you're using (left keys for right thumb, right keys for left thumb). This problem is most pronounced on the keys closest to the edges of the keyboard; for these keys I find myself pressing the wrong key or multiple keys.

    My biggest gripe with the keyboard is the placement of the Alt key relative to the number keys. Because the Alt key is positioned next to the 4 and 7 keys, it's nearly impossible to hold down Alt while pressing those numbers. I have average sized hands so I don't think this issue is unique to me. I would have liked to see the Alt key on the opposite side of the keyboard or perhaps two Alt keys, one on either side.

    I also don't like how the Tour doesn't have Pearl's Suretype correction feature. I've read this is being added in a future QWERTY Blackberry OS release; the sooner the better!

    Trackball The general feel and feedback of the trackball is good. I haven't had any of the 'sticking' problems reported elsewhere. One drawback of its recessed design vs. the Pearl is that I can't roll the ball as far with a single finger gesture (finger loses contact earlier since there's less ball exposed).

    Another issue with recessed trackball is incorrect vertical/horizontal scrolling (ie when browsing a webpage). The trackball sometimes interprets my vertical scroll gesture as a horizontal scroll and vice versa.

    Screen Stunning. Bright, clear, and very readable. No complaints at all.

    Sound Volume and clarity of the earpiece is very good, a big improvement over my Pearl. The volume tops out a little low for my tastes but clarity at the highest volume is very good.

    The speakerphone is excellent with good fidelity up to ~70% of volume. At volumes 70%-100% it gets a little muddy and very clipped.

    Speed The principle reason for wanting to upgrade from my Pearl was its sluggishness, esp. during web browsing. I'm happy to report that the Tour is a huge improvement over the Pearl. Browsing with Opera Mini is much faster, to my eyes at least 2x as fast. I've found that BB Messenger is much faster as well, which was a nice surprise. The speed improvement for other areas of the OS are less prominent but still noticeable.

    Tethering Tethering transfer speeds are significantly faster on the Tour vs. the Pearl. Using DSL report's Flash-based speed test, my speed went from 445KB down / 125KB up on the Pearl to 925K down / 600K up on the Tour. Latency was slightly lower on the Tour as well.

    Email Same as with my Pearl, excellent. No complaints. Porting my Gmail/Hotmail accounts from the Pearl couldn't have been easier; just provide your BIS login credentials and the accounts immediately appear on the phone. Push e-mail is instantaneous, just like on the Pearl.

    User-Interface I'm not a fan of the transparent-icon theme. I find it hard to distinguish one icon from the next and difficult to determine what app/action a particular icon represents. I also don't like how they've buried icons for important applications within folders, like the Instant Messaging and Applications folders. Luckily moving icons between folders is simple and easy.

    Issues The biggest issue I've had so far is intermittent freezing of the interface, where the Tour stops responding to keyboard/trackball input for a few seconds at a time. It appears to occur most frequently after saving a configuration setting or closing an application. The freezes happened about 5 times on the first day but luckily have stopped occurring since (maybe because I'm done setting all my configurations).

    Gripes I don't like how I can't set the number of 'beeps' for a notification (email, IM, etc...). On the Pearl you can configure 0-3 beeps whereas on the Tour you can only configure 0-1. This is a step backwards, esp. since the OS still doesn't support repeat interval notifications.

    Summary In short, I love the Tour. I need to work on my keyboard proficiency (esp. one-handed) but so far the learning curve has been quick. My biggest motivation for upgrading was browsing speed and in this regard the Tour is a huge winner for me.
    07-13-09 12:39 PM
  2. Parafly's Avatar
    Yeah I made the same upgrade, and concur with almost everything. Great write-up. I'm very happy with this so far, but actually maybe it's a learning curve but I typed much faster with my SureType pearl... the keys are bigger so it was easier to hit the keys I wanted, they are so damn small on the Tour.

    The screen and resolution are incredible - the web browser is actually usable now compared to the Pearl

    btw, out of context, i find this funny:
    finger loses contact earlier since there's less ball exposed
    07-13-09 12:43 PM
  3. LSkolnik's Avatar
    Awesome review! Thanks
    07-13-09 12:44 PM
  4. PoPcOrNPiMpZ's Avatar
    Thanks very much. This was very helpful. I may hold off longer 'n stick w/ my Curve b/c its handling its own. I just like the Tour's keyboard 'n camera better.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    07-13-09 12:46 PM
  5. Ningai's Avatar
    Great review, thank you.
    08-14-09 12:34 PM
  6. dst255's Avatar
    I used SureType on my Storm, and going from that to the full qwerty took a little bit of an adjustment. I agree with the one-handed typing aspect being a little difficult at first on the Tour, but I love the full typing now!
    08-14-09 12:38 PM
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