BlackBerry Pearl: You won’t be able to blog with it!

A Blackberry with a camera, how cool is that?

Well, not as cool as I imagined. In fact, it looks like I won’t even be able to honour my sponsor agreement with Blogads.nl.

If you haven’t read my previous blogs here is a small summary: I wanted a Blackberry Pearl and asked for one on this blog in exchange for a link under each blog I posted with the Blackberry Pearl. Within a few hours someone from Blogads.nl contacted me offered to send me one. Within 2 days I had it and started playing with it.

I received the phone on friday but Vodafone told me they had to fix some stuff and that I wouldn’t be able to email photos until monday. On tuesday I got a message from the Blogads.nl people that It finally worked.

Except it didn’t…

Well, it does….

Just not as expected.

I have been using a Blackberry for years now and love it. I love the fact that I can email anywhere in the world for a flat fee and am always connected an have everything in sync. The only feature I was missing was the camera. When the Pearl came out I didn’t think I could get used to the different keyboard. But then I tried one for a few minutes and it looked easier than I thought. I started looking forward to being able to take photos of things and people and events and sending to my blog from anywhere in the world! How cool would that be!

It would be cool. But it seems that this is not what Vodafone had in mind. They came up with a way to actually make lots of money of these photos!

This is what they came up with: MMS!

When you make a photo with the Blackberry Pearl you can’t just send it as an emailattachement. The Pearl does at first present you with a choice: select an emailaddress or a phonenumber to send your photo to. When you select an emailaddress you get a normal email interface and send your message. Then the magic happens…

The Vodafone Server turns your emailmessage into an MMS, charges you 50 cents, turns the MMS into an MMS formatted emailmessage, changes your ‘From’ address into your phonenumber and delivers it to the emailaddress you provided.

Yep, it’s true.

If the recipient of your photo replies the reply will be returned to Vodafone who will turn the email into a MMS again and send it back to you.

I think.

All of this is based on my own testing and research. Vodafone hasn’t confirmed it yet.

My main problem with this is that I can’t send a normal email. This means that you can’t use the Blackberry Pearl as a blogging tool. Blogging software detects an email and adds the attached photo to your blog. The MMS mail is a styled Mail Message with Vodafone logos and links in it and it contains 19 attachements, including your photo.

Oh, and the 50 cents sucks too.

And yes, you can still just send text emails but then the qwerty Blackberry was more convenient.

And yes you can still take photos on the road but than you would have to transfer them via USB to your laptop and then you are better off with a digital camera.

I know that the people from Blogads.nl are talking with Vodafone now trying to find out if there is any way arround the MMS service and they must be just as surprised as I am.

I am going to try to get used to the new keyboard layout. If I manage to get used to it an type faster or just as fast with it as I did on the qwerty Blackberry than I am going to keep it. Even without the camera the Pearl is still a beautiful machine. I love the trackball, interface and look and feel of the Pearl and can recommend it highly.

But if I’m not used to the keyboard by then I think it would be fair if I would return it to Blogads.nl. The deal was that I would use the Pearl for blogging and the reason I would use the Pearl is because it has a camera. But unless I can attach a photo to an email this is NOT the Ultimate Blogging Machine.

UPDATE: the very friendly people at Vodafone contac ted me this morning and told me they are now talking to RIM/BlackBerry to see if they can change this. A glimmer of hope!

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