Okay, so I went looking for a Blackberry Pearl for fun on Craigslist. I found one for $150 obo. What's the catch? The internal speaker wasn't working. I gave the guy $80, used it for a day.. took it apart the next night (tonight) pulled out the speaker prongs and sha bam! It works, good as new!
In other words, the internal speaker wasn't working due to poor connection!
So for those of you who are out of warranty or whatever, give it a whirl.. I used bb faq to disassemble the pearl. Note: Remove the screws before trying to remove the side panels.
I'm totally syked right now!!