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Blackberry 8700g
Rated 5.0 out of 5 The stylish RIM BlackBerry 8700c for T-Mobile is a new breed of BlackBerry. Yes, the RIM BlackBerry 8700c is still the best mobile email solution on the market, but this BlackBerry is thinner, lighter and more contoured than any before it. Plus, the RIM BlackBerry 8700c sports a complete phone, backlit QWERTY keyboard, full HTML web browser, viewer software for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Bluetooth and quad-band GSM to maximize your on-the-go potential just with more style than any before it.
Features of Blackberry 8700g:
- access up to 10 supported business and/or personal email accounts
- bluetooth hands-free headset and car kit support
- bluetooth phones
- bright, high-res screen provides large viewable workspace and includes intelligent light sensing technology to automatically optimize screen lighting levels for ideal indoor and outdoor viewing
- e-mail phones
- integrated attachment viewing for popular file formats
- lightweight handheld with a full qwerty keyboard
- pda phones
Reviews:
| High price point but can act like portable office | Rating: 4 |
| I really need to keep in touch with the internet/emails for my job. Instead of turning on a laptop everywhere this device is a good midway solution. The keyboard is still a bit difficult to use and can't replace the ease of a regular sized keyboard. However for quick emails and light file work this does a good job. |
| All around excellent product, except Instant Messaging | Rating: 5 |
I've been using this product for two weeks now and am happy to report it lives up to my very high expectations.
This is my first "smartphone" or PDA/Phone combo ever. I bought it for phone capabilities, wireless push email, web browsing and instant messaging. The telephone function is well-implemented and certainly was not an afterthought, as I've heard on other devices. Placing a call is quick and easy, and the address book search is lightning quick (my old Motorola V600 was pokey!). The microphone is the best I've used at canceling background noise such as wind and traffic, and as others have said, the speakerphone quality and volume is excellent.
Both email and web browsing are spectacular, and the Mail interface is excellent. It provides a consolidated list of SMS, MMS, Email and Instant Messaging conversations. The SMS message display is threaded, so you can easily scroll down to view the entire conversation. I had to call tech support to get MMS picture support completely setup (the T-Mobile picture web site is less than stellar), but it works.
The web browser is fast and accurate, and given the screen size limitations, it does an excellent job of rendering web pages in a usable and readable format.
In all applications, this BlackBerry is loaded with shortcut keys. Once you pick up these shortcuts, navigation is amazingly quick and simple. It's worth the time to learn the shortcuts so you don't use the trackwheel for everything.
*** Notes on Instant Messaging (skip if you don't care):
My biggest disappointment - and one for which I contemplated making this a 4-star review - is Instant Messaging. The built-in messaging application is OZ Instant Messaging, and allows you to chat on 4 networks.
What I didn't know is that it is not a true online instant messenger application. Behind the scenes, it sends instant messages using SMS, and on the other person's end, repackages those SMS messages into the IM application. It seems like a novel idea, but the side effects are awful: OZ Messenger's ability to stay "connected" for chat, report the online/offline status of others, and report YOUR status as online/offline is hit or miss. Sending and receiving messages is also very unreliable. During the three days I struggled through this, roughly half of my messages weren't sent due to a "network error", despite having 4 or 5 bars and a full EDGE connection. (Side note - I'm also worried T-Mobile will bill me for SMS usage when I used this instant messenger)
The good news: you can download Google Talk for free, and it is a true online instant messenger. I have had excellent experiences with it. You can talk with other GoogleTalk members, Gmail users or any other IM application that is Jabber-compliant. There is a complicated process (I haven't tried) to get GoogleTalk to communicate with the other networks. There are also third party IM apps you can purchase for $20-40 that do the same thing on other networks.
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Bottom line: you can't go wrong with this marvel of engineering for phone, email and web browsing, but keep low expectations for the built-in instant messaging application.
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| First time to BBRY and very adept user of devices | Rating: 5 |
| I am very impressed. My expectations of such devices is tempered and reasonable. Most of all it must work well - no crashes, good recpetion and ease of use. The OS seems to be rock solid - it handles errors and conflicts very well. In my large metro area on the east coast - the reception and coverage is excellent. Better than Cing. but nothing beats VZW from my experience. The device is reasonably fast even when it is not on the "EDGE". I was surprised that Rim had little and almost no customer support. Motorola will still talk to a customer and help. I found the BBFORUM to be very helpful. I never found the internet on cell phones to be of any use. On the 8700g the browser works very well with the usual exceptions. T Mobile rate plans make the BB reasonable to use when compared with very expensive plans of the other carriers. Overall very pleased. Amazon made the purchase fast and easy - had it in 2 days. |
RIM Part Number Blackberry 8700g |
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