A few months ago I purchased a BlackBerry Pearl.  I was faithful to my previous 4-year old BlackBerry, but it was finally time for a new one.  It seemed like a no-brainer to go for the “new and improved” model.  All-in-all, the phone is fine, but there is one MAJOR design flaw that is just ridiculous.

Every cell phone has a keyboard lock.  This is designed to prevent your pants pocket or purse from calling a random friend in your phone list and leaving a long, static-filled voice mail where you divulge all your inner secrets.  Of course the BlackBerry Pearl has such a feature and since I put my phone in my pants pocket like many people, I use it frequently.

Mysteriously, I started noticing that when I took my phone out of my pocket, it would be unlocked.  I would also notice phantom vibrations come from my pocket.  I thought I was going crazy.  Was I so addicted to the BlackBerry that I felt email notification vibrations that weren’t there?

After many ponderous hours and thoughts about seeking therapy, I finally figured it out.

The keyboard lock works for all buttons EXCEPT for the OFF button and the button that toggles the phone into vibrate mode.  This has a few implications:

• If the phone is in your pocket and the OFF button is depressed for a few seconds by accident, the phone will turn off.  Not terrible, right?
• Well, the bigger problem is that if the phone is already off, it takes only a single tap on the same button to turn it back on.  It then turns on in its unlocked state.  I find that I can never turn my phone off if I am in one of those places (like a theater) where you are supposed to, because it turns on so easily.
• The vibrate-only toggle button (that’s the # key) also still works when the phone is “locked.”  This means that if you have put your phone in vibrate mode and that key is accidentally pressed for a few seconds, the phone will switch back into normal ringer mode, potentially leading to major embarrassment!

How could the designers have missed this?  If the phone is locked, I don’t want any of the buttons to work.  There should be some obscure series of buttons to press to unlock it, but that’s it.  It’s hard to believe that the designers could get something so simple so ridiculously wrong.