New BlackBerry -- 7130c

Big Ed · 09-06-2006, 06:06 AM

Hey,

It's time for a new cell phone for me. Last time around, I tried the Palm Treo 650 but didn't like it as a phone and also found it too bulky. I would, however, like a smart phone so I can access my email remotely.

Am digging the look & small size of this new BlackBerry, and online reviewers seem to like it as well. Anybody out there have one? If so, what do you think of it?

mikester · 09-06-2006, 06:29 AM

I have a regular blackberry and like it enough, though I don't particularly enjoy taking calls on it. It works well. My wife has a 7105 which has a similar keyboard as the one you've posted. I hate it.

Big Ed · 09-06-2006, 06:50 AM

What about it do you hate, non-qwerty keyboard? Something else?

Halm · 09-06-2006, 07:10 AM

BB's are first and foremost PDA's that also happen to be a cell phone. These devices make the most sense if your company has a Blackberry Server and is "pushing" your Outllook to the device. Otherwise you have a poor phone and a non-standard browser. I don't know about this particular phone but I doubt it does MP3's or video's.

Depending on your carrier, look at Palm 700wx on Sprint, Palm 700w and Motorola Q on Verizon, and either the 2125 or 8125 on Cingular. Cingular is also rumored to be releasing the first flip phone style Smartphone aound 9/15. IMO, all of these are better devices than the BB.

jyl · jyl's Garage

The newest Blackberry 8700 is said to be a much improved phone, from people I know that have it.

Blackberries are the gold standard if your primary desire is to get/send email. You don't need an in-house Blackberry server. They are also relatively compact and more rugged than a Treo etc.

But if you primarily want to make voice calls, then the Blackberry isn't the best choice. And of course it lacks camera, MP3, and other consumer doo-dads.

I've been using Blackberry since the little pager-sized model. I ignore (almost all) voice calls and have trained almost everyone to send me an email if they need to reach me. Quite nice.

P.S. The biggest problem with the pre-8700 Blackberry, as phones, is that the output volume is too low. It's hard to hear the other caller when on a noisy street, even using an earpiece. I'd want to make sure they fixed that.

P.P.S. I don't know much about the Blackberry model that lacks a full QWERTY keyboard. I'm dubious, though. Supposedly it predicts the word you are trying to type, but how well does that work if you use a specialized vocabulary, abbreviations, lots of proper product or person names, etc? Seems like a PITA just to save a bit of device width.

Halm · 09-06-2006, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jyl
Blackberries are the gold standard if your primary desire is to get/send email. You don't need an in-house Blackberry server. They are also relatively compact and more rugged than a Treo etc.

John, with all due respect this is simply not the case anymore. If all you want is email to the phone, go get any number of cheap devices that can run a POP3 client, like SodaPOP. And even if you have a Blackberry Enterprise Server, Good Link and MS’s ActiveSync do everything the BB does and probably does it better better.

Get a more complete device and experience. Get a Smartphone or a Pocket PC.

jyl · jyl's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by Halm
John, with all due respect this is simply not the case anymore. If all you want is email to the phone, go get any number of cheap devices that can run a POP3 client, like SodaPOP. And even if you have a Blackberry Enterprise Server, Good Link and MS’s ActiveSync do everything the BB does and probably does it better better.

Get a more complete device and experience. Get a Smartphone or a Pocket PC.

Understood/agreed if you just want to receive email, but if you want to send email I don't see anything better than a QWERTY keyboard. Texting with a numeric keypad or scribbling w/ a toothpick stylus don't work for me.

None of the other doodad features have any value to me - camera, music, and so on. And I've dropped my Blackberry numerous times with no problem - most of the other devices don't look to me like they'd survive a nice fall to concrete.

Halm · 09-06-2006, 12:25 PM

Absolutely, I agree there.

I can "T-9" pretty well with my i-Mate SP5, but as soon as a decent GSM (Cingular) QWERTY phone is released, I'll be all over it.

Big Ed · 09-06-2006, 01:10 PM

Saw one of these new BlackBerrys in person today and made a couple calls with it. It IS a good phone, surprisingly. They must have put some effort into it.

The non-QWERTY keyboard is a little funky, but seems to work pretty well and intuitively. Just not sure how well I'll like it over time.

This unit has no camera and I don't know about video, but neither of those are important to me. I also looked at the Cingular 8125, but that seems too big for my liking (which was a big complaint I had with the Treo 650). I'm still mulling it over....

Halm · 09-06-2006, 01:13 PM

Ed, over the next 60-90 days there will be some really cool new Smartphones introduced. If you can wait, I can pretty much assure you that it will be worth it.

mikester · 09-06-2006, 01:28 PM

The thing I hate about it is the way the keyboard is multple letters per key and the predicting software rarely predicts the word I or letters I want. I'll take the full kb anyday. My phone works pretty well but my main purpose is access to email as I work for an internet company and need to get alerts if things are down fast.

nostatic · nostatic's Garage

there have been flip smartphones before...I recall at least one windoze phone (Samsung?) that Sprint had.

I'm in the market for a new phone, but it has to be a flip. Unless the Apple phone is as killer as it might be...

Halm · 09-06-2006, 01:37 PM

Todd, Cingular is rumored to be introducing the 3125 on 9/12. It is a flip phone and by all accounts it real nice. It is pretty much the same as the i-Mate Smartflip . Add a 1 Gb micro SD card and you can listen to MP3's for days.

nostatic · nostatic's Garage

interesting...you can listen if you charge the phone every day I assume

Is this phone the same as the T-Mobile MDA:

http://www.letstalk.com/product/promo.htm?devicePrId=30181

It's all so confusing. I need to shuffle my cell phone setup as my work situation changed. Presently I have a treo650 on verizon and a moto on t-mobile (along with hot spot). I need the hot spot because I often end up needing to get my laptop online when I'm out and about. My new work has accounts with ATT and Cingular, so I could switch to cingular and just keep the t-mobile hot spot. But I would love to only have one phone that can do everything. Not sure that will ever exist though...I can actually do fairly serious email work on the treo, no way on the moto.

911boost · 911boost's Garage

I currently use a Treo 700p from Verizon, and for e-mail it is much better than my flip style Samsung SPH-i500, as for a phone, it is not nearly as nice. I really wish Sprint would not have stopped supporting the Samsung, since it was smaller and I could read the e-mail just fine.

Not sure about everyone else, but I use the e-mail on my phone to notify me when I am on the road if there is soemthign that needs to be taken care of immediatly. If there is, I make a phone call. That is why I wasn't too worried about the lack of a keyboard on the Samsung.

With regards to all the doodad's all they have been good for is getting me kicked out of an ahem "adult dancing" establishment during a bachelor party. Although, in hindsight, I think the Jagermeister might have had more to do with that than the camera built into the phone.

Bill

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

The Treo 750 for GSM networks will be out shortly. It looks roughly like the Treo700/Treo650 without the antenna. It is supposed to be available in both Windoz and Palm OS. And you can add wi-fi by buying a wi-fi SD card.

I use both a Treo 650 and a Lifedrive. Both use active synch and VPN. The 650 can only handle a 2GB SD card. You can display and edit native word, excel, power point and display PDF files. It can show pictures (320x320), and run videos. The Camera isn't great, but it is decent and will do 15 fps. For an all around device, it has it. The phone quality isn't great, but with a Bluetooth headset, it is just fine. It will also play wav and mp3 files.

The Lifedrive is not a phone, but it does all of the above 480x320 screen and I have a portable keyboard. It's Wi-Fi and with Wi-file, I can access files on the shared network drives at work or home. If I can get SAP to run on the thing, it will replace my laptop. On the 4GB SD card I have 16 full length movies and many smaller videos (Music Videos and South Park) and it has a built in speaker for shared viewing.

For $100 less you can get the T/X which has more memory, but no Harddisk, so you have to add a 4GB SD card.

JeremyD · JeremyD's Garage

I've had good luck with my BB 7100t

I like that I can store webpages with weather info when I am boating. For phone usage - it's just OK = for email the suretype works well.

VincentVega · 09-06-2006, 07:56 PM

Just got a Cingular 8125, so far so good. Email and web access works great, much better than my old palm. The phone isnt bad, better with a headset.

Big Ed · 09-07-2006, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Halm
Ed, over the next 60-90 days there will be some really cool new Smartphones introduced. If you can wait, I can pretty much assure you that it will be worth it.

Hal, you definitely have my attention. I can wait 90 days. For that matter, if I wait until March then I can also change carriers (currently with Cingular, but in my area Sprint has the lead in high speed data via EVDO and Verizon is catching up quickly...).

However, like any evolving technology, I worry that your statement will probably also still be true 90 days from now..."wow, these new phones are great but just around the corner is the new ______ which will blow them away." Or will it? It's always hard for me to pull the trigger in cases like this.

Do you have any insights on the models that are coming up in the next 3 months? I see the 3125 which looks nice, but am pretty sure I don't want to rely on T9 typing completely for emails. What kinds of goodies are on the horizon?

Halm · 09-07-2006, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by nostatic

Is this phone the same as the T-Mobile MDA:

The link I sent is a brand new phone. The T-Mobile MDA is a Pocket PC and entirely different, same as the Cingular 8125. If you "need" a QWERTY keyboard and a GSM phone, the 8125 and MDA are your best choices today. That said, by Christmas there will be at least 2 new phones that will give you what you want. One of these is the Palm 750 and the other is a yet to be named HTC device, code name "Excalibur". I know I will have one of these within days of their release.

Keep in mind that these devices are first and foremost phones and Outlook. Even though I watched a couple of movies on my i-Mate SP5 during an overseas flight and its multi-media capabilities are good, you won't mistake them for an Ipod.