David's Musings, a Brit in the Bay

I’ve had my Blackberry 8700g for a couple of month now, and I love it. I wanted to write a few findings down and post some useful links.

I bought my BB from T-Mobile in the US. The service is patchy, but compared to most networks in the area I live 95054 – it’s pretty good most of the time. Before this Blackberry, I had a 7290. It was a great piece of kit, but even after 12 months with it, I was yearning for the latest and greatest. However, I did something rather daft. I actually went to switch providers and models. I attended Gartner in San Francisco in April and the CEO of Motorola was presenting and spoke about the new Q. I was sold! As soon as it came out, I was in the Verizon shop porting my mobile number and buying this piece of kit.

What a turkey it was. The battery life was poor, the usability poor, the speed – very slow. I wanted to install Slingbox software on it so I could watch my Comcast box – that made the battery last around 20 minutes! However, the worst piece of all was that it did not have the Microsoft Security Patch installed so I could link it with our corporate Exchange servers at work. The Q went back. I was disappointed as the Q was being marketed as corporate replacement for Blackberry – however, it just didn’t stand up to the test.

I then went back to T-Mobile who were really helpful, I ported my number back again – and bought the 8700g. Once you’ve had a Blackberry, it’s hard to go back to anything else.

Anyway, a couple months in and I love it. I find the new style screen very clear, the battery life very good and the usability even better than my previous one. So new cool features include:

• mp3 ringtones
• split of personal mailboxes for each POP account
• enterprise activiation and wireless syncing of not just email and diary, but also notes, contacts and tasks
• extra two programmable buttons
• dedicated call buttons
• true JPG/picture downloads and ability to save
• downloadable themes
• backlit, true display, with a sensor to automatically adjust the brightness
• EDGE network on T-Mobile making things a little faster
• availability of cool applications and games such as chess,
• Microsoft Office Communicator, Google Maps, Opera browser
• Handsfree speakerphone!