BlackBerry 8700
Average Ratings
Hands down...the best phone
I recently changed services and had to give up my RIM 8700g. I have now tried the RIM Pearl as well as the T-mobile Dash. I really miss the ease of use of the 8700G. Everything was easily accessible. The Pearl was nice too, however, I missed the full size keyboard available on the 8700.
Pros:
It's own email address
Internet easily accessible
Full QWERTY keyboard
MP3 Ringtones
Blackberry OS in and of itself is a pro if you ask me
Large screen
Cons:
No expandable memory
No camera
(not phone) but Suncom Blackberry service is very expensive at $45/ month in addition to your voice plan.
I really wish I was able to take the 8700 with me to the new carrier but due to my voice plan that was not an option.
8700C
Pros: I have had this phone for 4 months and it works great.
Great reception
Great UI, simply elegant and user friendly
Cons: very few 3rd party applications available compared to Palm and Windows Mobile OSes
Cingular does not allow MMS messages
Thoughts on 8700g and T-Mobile
I am in the Boston area and have recently tried the Palm 700p (on Sprint), T-Mobile MDA and recently chose the Blackberry 8700g on T-Mobile. Others have more bells and whistles - the 8700g simply works. No soft resets, crashes etc.. My primary interest is a solid reliable PDA / Phone. The 8700g is also by far the most ergonomic of the bunch - compact, light, with an overall good feel. I used to dismiss Blackberry products as the push email was not a main concern. Now it is clear they offer much more than just email. Great pda web browsing, contact, task and calander management. After having a stylus for 5+ years with various Palm and Pocket PCs - I do not miss it. The T-Mobile Edge network is not to be compared with EVDO data on Sprint. However, it is by no means bad - and when considering a PDA sized screen and mostly wap sites, it works fine.
Pros:
Great Form, Function & Style (ergonomics)
Rock solid OS - no resets, lock ups etc..
Bright vibrant screen
Affordability - net cost for handset = $50. after a $50 mail in rebate with 1 year contract and $59. voice and BB data plan.
Cons:
No expandability - SD or mini SD card
No Wifi
This Phone is GREAT
My dad purchased this phone for his job, and I have messed around with it a little, and I have to say, way to go BLACKBERRY! This is a powerful little phone. My dad uses it mostly for e-mail, and the battery life is decent for the use my dad gets out of it! The memory is great, and the ring tones are crystal clear! The only thing that is sort of bad about this BLACKBERRY, is that it doesn't have a camera, but other than that, no complaints! Great job BLACKBERRY!!!
blackberry 8700g
i went from blackberry 7290 to sidekick II to blackberry 8700g.
pros: speakerphone
great service
fastest phone internet wise
downloadable hi fi& polyphonic
ringtones (t-mobile specifically)
free of vibrate then tone ringing.
can hide icons (maybe some other
phones are incapable of that?)
bluetooth (unlike my sidekick II)
screen customization (i.e. background,
font.)
easily accessible downloadable
themes.
phone calls tranfer straight to
voicemail. (adore that tricky feature
when i catch people calling over and
over again when they think i can't see
theyve called)
cons: no preview when buying ringtones.
won't read certain websites.
email's and text messsages in same
screen
no camera/video.
i feel like it scratches easier than
7290.
wish there was keylock timer!
overall i like this phone. but i can't wait to see the next addition of the blackberry.
A different perspective
Pro/Cons
Read the rest of the posts, they are all about the same BUT here is no spin on itâ¦
Most of the work, checking email, unread messages, going to the next email, or message⦠can all be done with one handâ¦this is critical when you are sneaking a peak, driving, etc.
Quad band â I travel to Europe, asia. Very important to have almost, if not same functionality of north america, in distant places.
Keyboard â clip your nails, get used to the smaller keyboard, itâs worth the vivid screen.
Someone said, cant completely hide the icons, this is true (best of my knowledge) but you can hide most, making them semi-transparent, all but about 4 buttons that are critical and stay lit all the time, i.e. power, messages, etc.
Yeah, yeah, no mp3, no cameraâ¦donât care so what⦠I am all business and so is the berrtâ¦. donât want to hear whatever the new cool song is⦠that I did not hear till a year later when its no longer cool⦠and really, its just noise pollution⦠do yourself a favor, learn the value of vibrate, and peace and quiet. Has anyone ever head a ring tone blasting loud and you were excited to hear it...(unless its your ring tone of course)
Has cool themes, beautiful images for home page screens
Prognosis â You wonât get my berry out of my Kung Foo grip
P.S. in your redirector settings you can customize your berry signature, not a phone feature, but most donât know about it.
Blackberry 8700 in Rhode Island
Hi there,
I've only had my Blackberry 8700 for about 5 days but I wanted to write this review because I know when I was researching this device I didn't find much for how it worked in my home area, Rhode Island.
Well...so far, so good. The email was easy to setup (I have earthlink) and in about 20 minutes I was receiving email. The internet worked automatically, and is fast! There are some websites (ironically the Tmobile site) that do not come up on my browser but that could be my coverage or my settings or as TM customer service said...could be a problem with TM site. Other than that, most sites work great. Pictures come up and everything.
For emails, I can open up Word attachments with no problems. I did send myself a PDF file but it didn't open up but that could be a problem on my end. Still testing.
The phone itself has been working fine. I get the same coverage that I did on my Nokia which was good. I was concerned that I would get dropped calls but so far, no problems. People claim they can hear me fine and I find no big difference in the sound on my end. I am still testing though and have a trial period if I need to return the phone.
The only cons about the phone, so far are that there is no way to keep the phone on ring and silence it while in the holster. You have to take the device out to do that. OR you have to put it on silent before hand. Not a big deal though. Also all emails fall into the same folder whether they have been sent or received. But I have found it pretty easy to understand and this is my first Blackberry.
I have the TMobile Blackberry Add-on for $19.99 extra and that covers unlimited email/web browsing. TM has a great PDA customer service department who have helped me on numerous occasions because I have to say that while the Blackberry is probably the most intricate device I have ever owned, the manual is probably the smallest.
All in all, so far (crossing my fingers here) a great phone!
Great Phone But Perhaps Wait....
RIM has does it again! This phone is one of the better Blackberries out there on the market today. In short, the phone is fast (running on Intel processor), screen resolution is excellent, and the Edge support makes downloading a breeze! However, given what other companies are coming out with these days in terms of PDA phones, you might want to think twice before taking the dive. The next 6 months should give you plenty of options! My biggest negative on this phone is the sub-par build quality as compared to other BBs. The construction of the bod has a lot of "creaky" noise to it. My 7290 comes across solid as a rock.
Note: RIM has been launching new products like tomorrow. Check out the 8707 for 3G connectivity in the same phone!
PROS
- Excellent screen
- Bluetooth version 2.0
- Easy PC sync capabilities (Synchs with my Outlook with no problem)
- Good speaker phone
- Clear phone calls
- Can PIN other BB users
CONS
- Poor build quality
- Keyboard slightly cramped
- No camera
- No MP3 player
- Battery life not terrific
- Cannot send/exchange addresses between BB users and other phone users
DROP TEST
These things happen and let me share with you my experience. My old 7290 took a drop and had absolutely no scratches. My 8700 did the same and the case is chipped. Even before dropping, the 8700 felt surprisingly flimsy. (Personal opinion is that the 8700 came out amidst RIM's lawsuits last year and thus something was sacrificed.)
THOUGHTS
I've been looking around for other similar phones with Push Mail. The MotoQ comes pretty close. I just feel that the time has come for the MS Mobile 2005. That being said, the Moto Q is still in its dark ages in terms of connectivity. If you don't mind a chunkier phone, the Nokia E61 perhaps offers everything you would want (3G, WIFI) but on a Symbian OS. I haven't seen the Sony Ericsson yet, but that should also give all these phones a run for the money. Hold off for now!
GREAT DEVICE (EVEN FOR TEENS)
I will start off by stating that I'm 15 years old and I use the Blackberry 8700 to keep in touch with family and friends and the 5 people in my family all use them. I did at one point in time have the Treo 650 but the Operating System on it was terrible it was always freezing and resetting. the Blackberry is totally the opposite, never freezes and your always 24/7 connected with Email. For kids in school the attachment viewing is great for i.e. final exams review guides, can pull up reviews very easily. also the phone has edge 10 class internet on it which kills the Treo! Personally, with myself being 15 yes, I'd like to see a BB have a camera and MP3 player on it but I really don't think it gets in the way.
Pros: 1) Always on Email 2) Excellent Keyboard 3) Phone capabilities 10x better than the Treo's 4) Great operating system 5) Beautiful and extremely Bright LCD Color screen, and extremely Light Weight)
Cons: only 2 I can think of: No camera and no MP3 player and thats why I give it a 4.5/5 but don't not buy this phone bc of that. this phone is definitely better than all the other phones offered by Cingular
Also, If all the celebrities and Sports starts are using them why wouldn't it be the gadget of the century? Oprah doesn't speak highly of anything else other than her BB 8700c
