[sydnybru]

Call me mad or crazy... Maybe I am. For a very long time I wanted a blackberry in 2008 and on every phone released I craved a bb. BUt I never got one then last year I finally got the bold 9750 or somthing like that. I wasnt that keen. The screen was small and I gave myself a headache staring at it day and night always picking it up. I was lost in it.

I needed the money anyway and wasnt overly joyful about my bb so I sent it back to my carrier. I went back to my old reliant samsung rubbish e900 untill this year september I got an iphone 4... The thing is driving me nuts and i dont enjoy the touch screen experience. Same thing lost in virtual world of messaging and apps.

For some reason I prefer the trackball to use. Im not a virtual person id rather buttons that click and have give. the whole trackpad and touch screen.. virtual world.. all day on bbm and wats app and facebook. Drove me nuts and I cant wait to get rid of this iphone 4...

I love the look of the pearl 8120 and I do actually like the new pearl aswell. But I like to click buttons and keep it simple. its solid and smart and has a great look about it. The blackberrys of recent had that plastic look and ill break soon.. BUt the 81xx seem to look durable.. correct if im wrong?

It just seems a shame that every phone out there now it touch screen. Sadly all bb's new phones are so similer and seem to be tweeked only slightly untill they find something everyone loves.. To me its a watse of money to many options and all similer in look/design and how the os looks.

What is teh highest os you can put on the pearl 81xx

[hootyhoo]

4.xxxx.

While a really cool phone for it's time, don't expect it to perform any where near a more recent phone. The trackball by the way, gets irritating after a while due to unresponsiveness. It is a magnet for lint and other debris. It has very limited memory so if you are a heavy user, get used to multiple daily battery pulls.

I loved the pearl and it served me well for it's time, but I think that you will be more satisfied with a more modern and powerful phone.

[joeldf]

I agree with "hootyhoo". Had a Pearl 8100 for three years. The trackball, while great to work with when it worked, is a pain to deal with when it doesn't. I was able to maintain my trackball for almost the whole 3 years (regularly removing and disassembling down to the "rolling-pin" magnets and scrapping the gunk off the rollers), but the ball eventually wore down so smooth that it could no longer "bite" and spin the rollers.

My wife had a Pearl too, but she upgraded to the iPhone 3G long before I upgraded to the Torch. So I was able to salvage her trackball assembly as it still had enough roughness on it to last me a bit longer.

I love the trackpad. You do still physically press down to click. And the Pearl 3G still has a physical keypad.

BTW, the highest OS that the 81xx series can take is 4.5, and that's it. The last build update to 4.5 was very early in 2010, and there has been nothing else since. There is a 4.6, but that's for the Pearl Flip (82xx) and Curves with more memory than the 81xx has (which is a whopping 64MB).