I have had my Blackberry Pearl for 2 years now and its my first experience with a smart phone.  I really like having my Outlook features available along with my email and internet.  I like the size of the phone although I think the smaller keyboard on the phone makes texting labor intensive.  I would like to upgrade to the Curve model when my current contract is up for renewal.

When I first got this phone, I was surprised to learn that I needed to purchase several applications to be able to view simple email messages.  I thought it would work out of the box.