Blackberry Pearl 8130 w/ Verizon ???

[97tbird]

so...
it seems we're due for an upgrade from our oldish Nokia Bricks (alltel) finally...

And Alltel will be Verizon in a few weeks.

So i've been thinking of the BB Pearl 8130 as an upgrade, which Alltel still offers.

I don't use phones for much gimmicks, and never even had a phone with GPS, web browsing etc, so main thing is RECEPTION is good, esp. in our rather rural area ...
With our Nokia bricks from alltel, the reception has been great.

so, do any of you have a Blackberry Pearl 8130 ?? how's the reception? is this phone a durable, solid phone ?? any big + and - things you guys can think of?
I'd like to hear from past and present owners of BB Pearl 8130.

Thanks a lot I.A.

 

[ThirdeYe]

I have one. It's decent, but glitchy. I had a problem for a while where my memory would randomly leech itself down to nothing and cause the phone to be inoperable until I took out the battery. The reception seems to be fine. It's pretty solid/reliable from a physical standpoint. The keys are very small for texting, so if you do a lot of texting I'd recommend something else. It also likes to get laggy for no reason. Other than that, it's fine.

 

[97tbird]

thanks.
I text like once a month, hehe, so shouldn't matter.
it seems some early Verizon BB 8130s were glicthy like yours (did a bit of research online), but the replacement ones worked fine...

Hopefully they worked the bug out, but i am gonna read more on it.

 

[ThirdeYe]

Mine's actually from Alltel but they're now considered Verizon. It's the same phone, though. I think I pinpointed most of the memory glitches and such to having programs installed. When I deleted almost all of my programs and don't use them anymore, I don't run out of memory randomly anymore. Also, some programs tend to "hang" and cause your battery to drain prematurely, which is a pain.

 

[97tbird]

Hmmmmmmmmmm......

 

[ThirdeYe]

So basically what I'm trying to say is that if you want to get 3rd party applications, like weather programs and news reading programs, it tends to cause the memory to "leak" or fill-up rapidly, or hang and cause the battery to drain. It's fine if I don't use those applications or I keep an eye on the weather program to make sure it's not hanging and draining my battery. The other glitches are fairly minor.

 

[nthach]

One of the better phones VZW has, better than VZW's bubblegum teen-oriented LGs...

 

[97tbird]

thanks guys...
I am gonna go talk to an alltel shop about getting the upgrade.
it seems the only BB Pearl Verizon has is the "flip" which i don't like...
If we can get 2 BB Pearls from alltel before the real switch to Verizon takes effect i'll be happy...

 

[97tbird]

UPDATE: well got it on the last day of Alltel as it is known: upgraded to 2 BB Pearls: 99 cents a piece (YAY), with unlimited internet and messaging (which we don't do much); smart phone plan is only a bit more expensive than the one we had...and if we waited to do the upgrade with verizon later, it would have cost us a lot more for the phone...

so far the signal is as strong as our Nokia bricks in the BFE we live in, and i like the phone.
The signal is supposed to be "pushed" to a stronger level in the next 48 hrs, Alltel tech said...

will update again, so far it seems we made a good choice.
(I noticed that the Pearl has a regular 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is neat)