Monday, January 28, 2008

BlackBerry Pearl - usage tips

For us the BlackBerry Pearl is a waystation on the way to iPhone 2.0, but Google is making it at least interesting. So I went hunting for tips, and found a few on "Tong Family Blog":
The codecs include AAC! I just tested it and they work very well.

Some of my favorite shortcuts (mostly from the Tong list but I've since added a few of my own):
  • To move to the top of a screen (web page esp), press 1.
  • To move to the bottom of a screen, press 7.
  • To change text input methods when in a text field: Press the Menu key and then Click Enable Multitap or Enable SureType. (SureType is very unsure when entering URLs and usernames.)
  • To switch applications, hold the Alt key and press the Escape (back) key. Continue holding the Alt key and roll the Pearl to select an application. Release the Alt key.
  • To return to the Home screen, press the End (hang up) key.
  • To lock the keyboard, from the Home screen, hold the asterisk (*) key. To unlock the keyboard, hold the asterisk (*) key and press the Send key
  • To switch between the Default and Vibrate notification profiles, from the Home screen, hold the pound (#) key.
  • To assign a speed dial number to a key, from the Home screen or in the Phone application, hold the key you want to assign. Type the phone number.
  • To insert a period, press the Space key twice. The next letter is capitalized.
  • To insert a period (.) in the Go To dialog box, press the Space key. To insert a forward slash (/) in the Go To dialog box, hold the Shift key and press the Space key.
  • To open the bookmark list from a web page, press 5.
  • To add a bookmark from a web page, press the question mark (?) key.
  • To view a thumbnail version of a web page, press X. To return to the normal view, press any key. You can navigate a long web page by scrolling the thumbnail.
  • To toggle the banner on a web page, press the exclamation point (!) key again.
I also liked the pointer to the 2GB Sandisk microSD card with an SD adapter.

Now that I've shown the BB really can play AAC I'll get a 2.5mm to 3.5 mm stereo out adapter and a 2GB SD card.

No comments: