BlackBerry 7100 / 7105
Average Ratings
Great phone, bad reception
As a blackberry this phone is great! I was upgrading from the 7290 because I wanted more of a phone form factor.
This is a very light phone, good feel and good battery life.
Cons:
The software is slower than 7290.
The reception is really bad, the arial is located in the base of the phone, so if you cup it in your hand (which you do to use the dial) it looses 1-2 bars of signal strength ... not a problem unless you are around a low signal area - which happens!
Great Functional Device, not PDA
This phone is great, works like its supposed to, and the e-mail system is superb. However its ability to do other things is weak, thus the consumer should be weary of this and not buy this to replace a pda, but instead to simply add e-mail to their phone service.
Pros:
Great RF
Well done e-mail
Better phone than the old blackberry
Great Screen
Cons:
Battery sucks
Could be 5000 times more powerful in terms of competition with pda's, even thought that is not rim's market
Not Convinced yet
Although the form factor and feature set are impressive, I am not yet convinced this device is for me. (I am a corporate user that prefers Palm based OS devices). My primary concern is poor signal strength while in buildings using T-Mobile relative to my LG VX4500 on Verizon that works everywhere. Unfortunately my employer's it department only used T-Mobile for BlackBerry services..I was hoping for a TREO. The VX4500 simply is inadequate for corporate use as it cannot sync at all.
Pros:
General Feature Set
Form Factor
Ability to access corporate email in real time.
USB Cable sync and battery charging
Great Display
Cons:
Not comfortable with scroll wheel yet
Poor reception
Poor battery life
No Infrared Ports
Worth every penny
I could not ask for more features, awesome quality, tremendous cool factor, all in a $300 unit. Don't believe anyone who says the battery life is just so so. It's just fine. Unless your needs require a Pocket PC or Palm, this is the ultimate device.
They keep getting better
This unit lives up to its reputation. The signal strength is strong, the reception is great. Easy to manipulate and the screen is crystal clear.
The bluetooth worked much better on this unit than my recent HP6315. The unit also has loud alarms which are essential for my appointment reminders.
Email client allows it to capture my AOL mail and let me know that it has arrived.
The two key deal will take some getting used to but seems to be pretty accurate.
The unit is very light weight. It has a bit of a plastic feel when you press the keys but that doesn't really bother me.
Too early to tell what the battery life is like. They have the default screen setting set to 100 so I imagine I'll experiment with that a little to see what it does for battery life.
THAT damn good
First SureType Berry. I admit I had apprehensions... which were all proven wrong when I started writing my first emails. The input prediction is actually VERY good, and with the option to add your own custom entries in the dictionary, writing emails and texts is a breeze.
RF on this Berry is kickass. It holds a damn good signal and that's all there is to say.
On the battery front, with the minimal backlighting options, my experience with battery life was about 8-9 days. It dropped to 6-7 days after setting push email, but that's still pretty damn good, seeing as I am returning from iDEN, which has ridiculous battery life.
On the sound quality side, this is another point where the 7100 shines. Incoming audio is great, incoming audio on the speakerphone is great, and callers told me I don't sound like I'm on a cellphone. The volume is also pretty damn good, too. It could have been a little louder, but hell, when incoming audio is that good, that's something I'll gladly overlook.
I also liked the fact you can program the convenience key to anything you want. I found this to be a very quick and easy way to lock the keypad.
Bottom line, the 7100 is a fine phone that performs extremely well in what you would expect it to be -- phone, email, and RIM's great PDA options. It's also MUCH smaller than regular QWERTY Berries like the 7290, so it's also comfortable in the hand. Having used the said 7290 myself, I can say the 7100 feels like a phone and not a CrackBerry.
Two thumbs up to RIM for this SUPERB Berry!
great phone! very under-rated!
I love this phone! I own the 7105 model and I don't understand what all the fuss is about! I don't have a problem with reception. I've never had a dropped call. Heres a run down of the phone!
Pros:
*this is a big one for me, you can text with one hand!
*great size
*easy to learn keypad
*smaller and thinner than other blackberry's
Cons:
*internet could be a tad faster
*screen could be a little brighter in the sun
other than that, this phone is great!!
Interesting, but Disappointing experience!
Ok, I have had this phone for about 39 days, and at the start it was VERY nice and worked well, and thought that I would have no problems. WRONG! For 3 weeks it was good no apparent problems or anything, but starting last week my phone has been turning itself off, ( yes you read it right!) and when I go to turn it back on it will NOT turn on at all! I have to take out the battery wait 5 minutes then put it back in, THEN the phone will start, but even then it takes another 10 minutes for all the programs to load before I can do anything! So, I contacted Tmobile and they were very nice and they are replacing this one with a Pearl. I am happy about this, but wished that I didn't have these problems to start with!
I love this thing!
The 7100G is a great phone!
I've used all sorts of Motorola's, and Samsungs, and I love this thing.
Its a business man's phone; no camera, speaker phone, bluetooth (voice only).
The SureType Qwerty Keypad took some time to get used to, but overall great product!
I would strongly recommend this phone to anyone who is serious about a serious phone.
In response to: Want unrealible service and many dropped calls then this is the phone for you!!!
We are reviewing the phone not the service, so in doing so your review is a little unjust. If you were in my part of the country you would rave how great it was, if the service and phone was as bad as you state I'am sure your company would have switched by now. Plan prices mean nothing to a company if they can't use their phones because of poor service, and if they choose poor service and price over good service and a few pennies extra they are very counter productive. So there's a couple of things you can do: have the phone checked out, check other T-mobile customers service in your area. If others are having problems then maybe you need to consult T-mobile and/or seek another carrier..or as you stated earlier return to pen & paper and use Pony Express.
My 7105t works great, and because it does I'm happy and will continue to use it. I just find it unfair to judge a product in an area that may have bad service, that is not a flaw of the product but the carrier.
Pros: 90% Functional
Cons: 10% Minor
Still a great product, execellent value.
