The Clymo Brief: BlackBerry geocaching
They say that everybody should have a hobby, which is fair enough, but there are some odd ones doing the rounds these days.

Familiar with geocaching? I wasn’t until last week, when it cropped up in a pub conversation with my other half. I happened to mention to her that a leading GPS company had been harping on to me about geocaching being ‘the next big thing’, and it turns out that she’s got a friend who’s an avid enthusiast.

Geocaching

Apparently he spends his spare time using GPS to hunt down treasure troves hidden in secret locations all over the globe. He locates the ‘cache’ via satellite coordinates and then takes a look at what’s in there. Don’t get excited, though: the cache usually contains items of little or no value because profit is not the point of the exercise.
The stash is concealed in a Tupperware box or old ammunition tin and it’s possible to discover anything from a humble notepad and pencil to a mouldy sausage roll. (Actually, food is discouraged for obvious reasons.) Then the geocacher leaves something behind, scribbles a little message in the guestbook and heads home to log the find on a geocaching website. And so it goes on.

Which brings us neatly to the BlackBerry Pearl 8110 smartphone. I like to think that I’ve got a keen sense of direction, so I was a bit sniffy on hearing that the 8110 comes complete with a GPS navigation system. Do I really need that feature on a mobile phone?

The BlackBerry Pearl 8110

However, the BlackBerry also comes laden with an impressive armoury of applications which, on the Vodafone version of the 8110, currently includes Telmap navigation software. Put the two together and you suddenly have a formidable device for getting from A to B. Or for discovering the delights of geocaching which, after my drinking session at the pub, seemed like a very good idea.
The phone itself seems to be a valiant attempt by Research in Motion, the manufacturer of BlackBerry products, to target more mainstream phone users. This is a smart idea because the BlackBerry brand has long been stuck with a very sober suit-and-tie image.

You don’t really expect to see regular people using them - though that did change for me the other week. I saw a lady of advancing years skilfully manipulating one on the train. I sneaked a glance to see what she was looking up on Google, which proved to be an eyeball-popping experience. Nevertheless, she was putting her BlackBerry through its paces and it appeared to be delivering the goods.

It seems then like the 8110 is the perfect candidate for bridging the gaps between those business class executives, excitable old ladies and an everyday Joe like me.

Features

It has a pile of stuff that people who use mobiles for fun will love. There’s Facebook for starters; that’ll keep plenty of social networking types happy. There’s also a plentiful supply of midget-sized web browsing at your fingertips.
It was the web browsing that made my BlackBerry experience less than perfect, actually. I found it all a little bit tiring. This is certainly no iPhone or iPod touch when it comes to providing an enjoyable browse on the go, though things do get easier as you start to master the QWERTY-style keyboard layout and pearl trackball thingy.

A 2 megapixel camera with flash and 5x zoom, along with VGA video capture with a choice of resolutions, are ideal additions for the home user market. You will, however, need an additional microSD card to do anything properly with the latter feature.

The limited screen size makes all of this only partially successful, but the screen area that you are given is crystal clear. The 8110 is also quite petite considering all of the stuff it’s got packed inside its good-looking case and, at around 88 grams, it feels just about right in your hand or pocket.
Inescapable email

It’s email on the 8110 that really stands out for me though. No surprise, seeing as these phones were originally devised with business purposes firmly in mind. The biggest problem is that you can’t leave it alone. Email has the tendency to nag away at you at the best of times. As soon as you know it’s on your phone, the urge to keep looking at it becomes compulsive.

On the bus, in the bed and even on the toilet, you’ll love being able to keep tabs on your omnipresent inbox. As a result, owning a BlackBerry 8110 will mean much less sleep. Oh, and no friends either. Or social life. But at least you’ve always got Facebook, right?
But what of the GPS feature and my first foray into geocaching? First of all, I had to arm myself with the magic data needed to find my way to the hidden location. Once I had created an account at the geocaching website, it allowed me to view coordinates for a cache near a preferred location. Thankfully, this means you can dip your toes into the geocaching waters without having to carry a rucksack, pack a tent or take on supplies of toilet roll for a yomp across the moors.

After a bit of tinkering, some mild cursing and a good deal of walking, I did manage to find a cache near me and that was great, if a little underwhelming. At least I got to stretch my legs on a nice evening. Shame the battery didn’t prove a little more resilient because in the meantime the phone ran out of juice. In my haste to become one of the geocaching community, I’d not given it a full charge so the 8110 went flat on me and, as a result, I managed to get lost on the way home. Next time I’ll take a map.

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Rob Clymo is a journalist employed on a freelance basis by Microsoft. The views in this article are those of the author and not of MSN or Microsoft.