Blackberry PearlI’ve had a Blackberry Pearl for a few months now and, in general, I love it. It’s a great phone. I love that I can check scores on ESPN and use Google maps and — as a surprise bonus — I can send and receive phone calls and text messages. Here’s what bugs me: The keyboard lock feature is not smart. Like most “candybar” type phones with an exposed keyboard, there is a way to “lock” the keys so you don’t accidentally dial numbers when it’s in your pocket. If you hold down the pound key (#) for a couple of seconds, the keyboard locks. Issues:

  1. To unlock the keyboard, you push the pound key and the call key. But if you hit the scroll ball, you get a screen with options “Unlock”, “Emergency Call”, and “Cancel”. If you choose “Unlock”, instead of unlocking — which is what you’d expect — it tells you to push the pound key and the call key to unlock it. Okay, yes, I know that. Why is one of the options “Unlock” if it doesn’t actually unlock the phone? Not smart.
  2. When someone calls, if the keyboard is unlocked it automatically unlocks so you can answer the call. But when you finish the call it doesn’t return to locked state; you have to hold the pound key to lock it again. Not smart.

Those aren’t major bugs, but I wish there was a way to correct them. I found some software to let me change the color of the LED behind the scroll ball, but the only hack I found to change the way the keyboard lock feature functions doesn’t seem to work.


There are 7 comments on this post

  1. Nothing’s perfect although I’m pretty sure there’s an autolock feature for the Pearl. Mine has one, perhaps you should take a look at a firmware upgrade.

  2. you can set the convenience keys to lock the keyboard on the pearl.

    Settings, Screen\Keyboard – and then tell one to lock the keyboard. I use the left one as that by default on mne is set to voice dialling (which I never use as it’s a work device).

    hope this helps

  3. your dumb quit bitching about the lock. oh now you have to press 2 buttens insted of 1 you lasy fat ass get over it

  4. My pearl often calls 911 while locked in my pocket. It also inexplicably calls the first name in my address book while locked in my pocket. It also somehow manages to add this person to the first slot in my speed dial, again, while locked in my pocket.

    I’m not kidding.

    I can’t wait to dump this phone. Wont be buying another.

  5. “calls 911 while locked in my pocket”

    Mine did too.
    You have to put the phone into STANDBY mode to stop this, rather than autolock.

    Hold down the MUTE key (on the top EDGE of the phone) – this will stop you calling 911 in your pocket. It has taken me 1 year to work this out myself!

  6. Hi Jazid

    That was the best advise about the standby as my accidently call emergency also…..

    Great tip

Add to the discussion:

I'll never share your email address and it won't be published.

What Is This?

davidgagne.net is the personal weblog of me, David Vincent Gagne. I've been publishing here since 1999, which makes this one of the oldest continuously-updated websites on the Internet.

bartender.live

A few years ago I was trying to determine what cocktails I could make with the alcohol I had at home. I searched the App Store but couldn't find an app that would let me do that, so I built one.

Hemingway

You can read dozens of essays and articles and find hundreds of links to other sites with stories and information about Ernest Hemingway in The Hemingway Collection.