vB Easy Archive - 8525 Alternatives

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8525 Alternatives
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Posted by: hominamad

I've had the 8525 for a few weeks now and think it's a cool device but I have a lot of peeves about it. I'm considering switching to the Pearl but am not sure how it measures up to some of the annoynances I have with the 8525.

A few questions for you Pearl owners:

+ How strong is the vibrate?
+ Is the phone volume loud enough?
+ Does it support ringer profiles?
+ Is there full MS Exchange syncing? i.e. Do calendar and contacts fully sync up?
+ How is the battery life?

Some features I thought were important to me I'm now realizing are more nice-to-haves for me. Such as 3G, wide array of 3rd party apps, full keyboard, Word Doc creation, etc. What I'm really looking for is something that does its job extremely well as a phone, but also has full Exchange/push email capabilities.

I used to own a 7120 which I had some complaints about, but in retrospect while not perfect, it was a very stable and usable OS. The more I use the 8525, the more I see the flaws and bugginess of Windows Mobile.

Posted by: richy240

I am not a Pearl user, so I cannot comment of most of your concerns. I can comment, however, on Exchange synchronization.

You'll need a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, or BES, for real synchronization with an Exchange server; BlackBerry does not natively support Exchange. Instead, you can either use the Desktop Redirector (software available from RIM) or a web-based email service (it checks your mailbox every so often and pushes the changes to your device) provided by your carrier.

Posted by: hominamad

Thanks for the response. I actually just came back from looking at the Pearl and don't think I'm crazy about it anyway. I don't think I could ever get used to that keyboard.