Blackberry Pearl 8100 or T-Mobile Shadow?

DasUberEdward

I'm debating between the Blackberry Pearl and the T-Mobile Shadow. There is only a ten dollar price difference so that's not an issue. My question is of functionality and design. I would like to phone to handle multimedia very well. Which phone should I go for? I don't intend to sign up for an additional internet plan but if one of the phones handles wi-fi hotspots better than the other that would also help my decision.

Any advice or personal experience?

(Edit: Is there a cell phone thread?)

Crashtard

I have a pearl 8100. I really like it, mostly. I've had it for almost 2 months, and I'm on my third phone. There are some programming problems with the phones, as well as a memory leak. The phone is great, but you really don't know whether you're going to get a good one or not. I would at least ask the clerk about the problems and see what they say. Mine is doing some odd things again, and probably I'm going to have to call the tech guys again and see what they say. Hopefully I won't have to take it back, but if I do I'll probably switch phones to something else.

DasUberEdward

Is the Shadow actually an ericsson?

Kyougu

I had the Shadow for a week and was very dissapointed.

My biggest beef with it was Windows Mobile sucked on it. It lagged really bad, stuttered and froze every so often.

DasUberEdward

What'd you move onto Kyogu? Right now i'm leaning toward the pearl. How is the software community for the blackberry? I do love add ons and the like.

Kyougu

I just got a temporary cheap phone until something that caught my eye came along.

I have a friend who's way into phones and from what he's told me the Pearl is a decent, though not awesome phone (I considered it at one time). Then again he hates anything with window mobile (which I can see why after using the Pearl.)
He loves buying smart phones, and he's always bought them off the internet.

DasUberEdward

Hm, i've been hearing a lot of bad things about windows mobile. So i'm guessing I should steer away from the Shadow then?

Monoxide

The Pearl 8120s are supposed to be coming out soon for T-Mobile and Cingular, which is the replacement for the 8100. It has WiFi, which is a big enough improvement for me to hold out over the 8100 I was planning on buying last month.

Engadget reported back in december that they were set to hit T-Mobile stores on the 18th, but that obviously wasn't the case. I haven't heard anything yet, so it's up to you if you want to wait it out or not, but just be aware that buying an 8100 now could mean you'll miss out on the 8120 features if you wait.

Pheezer

The thing about Blackberry is that you won't be experiencing lag or crashing on their devices. The hardware and the software are very neatly tied to each other, it's not like someone tried to take a more generic platform and mold it to their device. So a bit of hesitation towards Windows Mobile devices as compared to single vendor hardware/software combinations makes sense.

I've used neither because smart phones are for dudes who get paid well enough to take e-mail at the dinner table.

DasUberEdward

Monoxide wrote: »

The Pearl 8120s are supposed to be coming out soon for T-Mobile and Cingular, which is the replacement for the 8100. It has WiFi, which is a big enough improvement for me to hold out over the 8100 I was planning on buying last month.

Engadget reported back in december that they were set to hit T-Mobile stores on the 18th, but that obviously wasn't the case. I haven't heard anything yet, so it's up to you if you want to wait it out or not, but just be aware that buying an 8100 now could mean you'll miss out on the 8120 features if you wait.

But I imagine the pricing wouldn't be similar, right?