[shawnc]

Looking for advice, not attempting to start a flame war. I've had my pearl for about 6 months and it was definitely love at first site. But I've become increasingly frustrated with RIM's unwillingness to add basic functionality to the music player capabilities. First, stereo BT. When I purchased my pearl it was advertised as being capable of playing stereo BT. Come to find out that that was a lie. A2DP support is required. I guess I should have known that, but being a non-techie, that was simply a distinction I was incapable of making. Next, an inability to create playlists. One of the primary motivations behind my pearl purchase was to have a truly converged device that would allow my to retire my Nano. Now I certainly didn't expect the pearl to have all the functionality of a dedicated music player, but never in my wildest dreams did I think something as basic as creating playlist would not be included. Definitely my fault! (BTW, tried the D5 solution but was underwhelmed).

I knew that getting my IT department to allow me to use the pearl to replace my corporate BB for email and network access was a longshot. As such, I rarely use the device for email. Telephone and music player, though I must admit that I text much more with this device as I have fallen in love with how great the word recognition software works.

I'm thinking of replacing the pearl with the Samsung a727

Samsung SGH-A727 (AT&T) Reviews. Cell Phones Reviews by CNET.

In addition to the 2 complaints I've detailed above, the Samsung has a form factor that is slightly more to my liking (though not enough to make me switch). It's slightly lighter, thinner, and longer.

Given what I use the pearl for, I was hoping for advice/suggestions from this community. Pros, cons, opinions, etc.

Thanx

[JSanders]

Shawn, I can't speak for the Samsung (afterall this IS a BlackBerry site), but if you used by the mediaPlayer from dollars5 you would have found a much more advanced player than the stock one, and it uses playlists as well, which you say you want so very very badly.

A BlackBerry is not for everyone. It remains primarily an email device, with addtional features. It really sounds as if music and SMS are your primary needs, another device may fit you better.

[shawnc]

JS,

Thanx for the response. When I tried the D5 player I downloaded the trial, which seemed to have quite a large footprint with not much added functionality. I was told by the developer that I needed to purchase the entire suite to get the mono BT through headphones and playlist functionality, and I couldn't get a trial download. Didn't seem worth the risk to me.

But I'm afraid you may be right on my use of the pearl. It has so much functionality that I don't need and may be a little light on the features that are most important to me.

Again, thanx for the response.