I have the 8830 and I used to have the pearl on tmobile. I must say I miss the camera function but overall the 8830 is a lot nicer. I like the qwerty keyboard better (suretype was nice but sometimes if you werent looking at the screen when u were typing it would predict the wrong word). I also like the fact that the 8830 is a lil bigger than the pearl, but thats just my personal preference. If you can go to a tmo store and play with the pearl and go to the verizon store and play with the 8830 and make your decision from there. Hope this helps.