Well thought out PDA/Phone Combo for the connected individual
Written: Feb 01 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Always on e-mail, cool instant messaging, great combination of PDA and cell Phone
Cons: Limited 3rd party software, seems fragile, no docking cradle or base
The Bottom Line: Always on e-mail; Well suited for the business professional. Lacks camera or MP3 player but dont you have a digital camera and iPod already?
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| mrric's Full Review: RIM BlackBerry 7100t Smartphone |
Like you reading this I wanted to ditch my cell phone and PDA so I can use one "SmartPhone" instead of two old units.
To give you and idea of prior functionality I had a Nextel i95CL cell phone and a Toshiba e740 PDA.
Useful features of the Nextel included direct connect, voice memo, and limited web browsing while the Toshiba had built-in WiFi, Windows based operating system so it was compatible with MS Outlook and had space for tons of notes, played MP3s and had handwriting recognition, a great quick way to enter text once you get the hang of it.
Well I'm a techie geek and the Nextel was 5 years old and the Toshiba was 2 years old. With all the new gadgets coming to market it was a tough choice between waiting for the Nextel i930 smartphone, the Audiovox 6600 or the RIM 7100 series. In the end it came down to monthly fees, functionality and initial cost. Overall the 7100 meets most of my needs and exceeds in a few areas too.
Inputting information via SureType really is as easy as all of the message board posts say it is. Give yourself 2~3 days and it's faster than handwriting recognition or the multi-tapping of the cell phone keyboard.
Web sites look like they do when you are looking at a monitor, sharp, bright and clear. Slow mind you when loading but that is the provider, in my case T-Mobile.
Signal strength seems about average and battery life is more than acceptable. While stated as 4 hours talk time and 8 days on standby I'd guess you can squeak a bit more out of it. Hint... turn down your backlight to 40 and set the display timeout to 10 seconds. At those settings you'll get more life and not require an additional lithium-ion battery between charges.
Making calls from the address book is a snap and the speakerphone is clear at the highest level, which could be a bit louder and potentially fixed with the new software coming out (version 4.0 instead of 3.8 I hear)
Coolest thing is instant messaging. I use Yahoo and it's quick, looks just like the online beta version that Yahoo has. You can save conversations or delete them, see which of your buddies are online...it's really amazing.
As for e-mail I went with the Blackberry Web Client to catch my personal e-mails in real time and then my corporate e-mails on the weekends or while away on business.
This model even lets you see PDFs, Excel and other attachments. With my old "Two piece setup" I couldnt get e-mail on the go, I had to sync up.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 0 w/rebate
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Epinions.com ID:
mrric
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Member: Rick Komas
Location: Volo, IL U.S.A.
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Customer Marketing Manager- National Accts. East for Solo Cup Company
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