I've had my BlackBerry 8100 Pearl for about a month and a half, and use it mostly for phone, messaging, address book, and media player.This is my first BlackBerry, but not my first messaging device. I wasn't sure at first about the keys sharing two letters, but the SureType technology has been about 95% accurate at guessing what I want to say, so I have been pleased. It is much better than similar technology on regular cell phones. The combined key format is a small tradeoff to have the smaller size.The device itself feels solidly built. I was leery of the mini-trackball and how well it would work, but so far, so good!The messaging service is fast and pretty reliable. My only gripe in this department is that none of the info on ANY of the websites (Amazon or T-Mobile or any other vendor) made it real clear and broke down what the messaging costs were through T-Mobile. If you get the unlimited data and email package, it does NOT include SMS messages; those cost extra, sending and receiving. However, you can avoid messaging charges by instead of just sending a message to someone's cell number, sending email to, for example, &lt;cell number>@tmomail.net (or whatever the appropriate email domain is for their phone company). Then, if they send an email to you at your tmo.blackberry.net email address instead of sending an SMS message, you won't get charged.I like the ability to use pretty much any MP3 or MIDI as a ringtone. Since it's a USB connection, I don't have to buy ringtones, just download from my PC.I didn't really intend to use the camera, which is good because the quality is not great (but maybe no worse than other camera phones...I don't have a lot of experience there) I do like the zoom capability using the trackball, though.The Maps feature is cool. It is integrated with the address book and lets you map directly from there or enter your own addresses ad hoc. Not having owned or ever having used a GPS mapping device, this beats paper maps hands down, though the trackball control takes a bit of practice in this application.I've used it with a Motorola bluetooth headset and it works well. My biggest gripe overall with the Pearl, is that you can't listen to music on a bluetooth headset. I really don't understand this one, as it almost seems like they intentionally crippled this function.The sound quality via stereo headset (wired) is good. (The stereo headset isn't included--just mono.) However, I still haven't found an adapter from the 2.5mm (four conductor) headset jack to allow for plugging it into my car stereo.I do recommend getting the OEM holster. Aside from its good fit, the phone also has a sensor that lets it detect that it's in the holster and turns the screen off. It also lets you vary the ringtone if it is in the holster. Very nice. I set mine to vibrate first when in the holster so I can keep from annoying people around me with message alerts.The rebate from T-Mobile was processed pretty quickly. I was expecting a month or two delay and I received it in about two weeks from when I mailed it.Bottom line, I am happy with it so far. Aside from the bluetooth/music issue, I haven't found anything I was really unhappy with, and did I mention it looks pretty cool, too?!