The Good: The RIM Blackberry 8700g is a quad-band world phone aimed at business customers, the phone includes a full QWERTY keyboard, Speakerphone, EDGE and Bluetooth. The 8700g offers easy e-mail setup and adds support for popular instant-messaging clients
The Bad: The keyboard feels slippery and cheap to the touch, and the square design may take some time to get used to. The phone doesn’t include any games and PDF files often lose their formatting when viewed and do not open completely. Another sore point is the inability to edit documents viewed on the device.
The Bottom Line: This is an ideal device for the travelling businessperson, with a fine range of bundled accessories and long talk and standby times. However, with the lack of any ‘leisure’ features, other consumers may wish to look elsewhere.
The Good: The RIM BlackBerry Curve boasts a sexy and slim design with an improved full QWERTY keyboard. The smart phone also has a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and a media player. There’s a new spell-checker for e-mail and memos, and audio technology that automatically adjusts call volume in noisy environments.
The Bad: Unfortunately, the BlackBerry Curve doesn’t have integrated Wi-Fi or 3G support. The device’s camera still doesn’t have video-recording capabilities, and call quality sounded a bit hollow.
The Bottom Line: Though it doesn’t bring Wi-Fi or 3G support, the BlackBerry Curve offers a best-of-breed design and a well-rounded set of features to make it an attractive device for consumers and mobile professionals alike.
The Good: It’s a Blackberry and it’s shaped like a phone. They keypad is much larger than previous generations and as such much easier to type with. The screen is also visibly brighter that it’s predecessors.
The Bad: It’s not exactly cutting edge, it’s just a small upgrade from the 7100T. Also bothersome is the fact it can’t be utilized as a laptop modem, while most comparable phones include this feature.
The Bottom Line: This phone is much more an evolution than a revolution. When comparing the 7105T and 7100T the 7100T will probably serve you fine and may be available at a substantial savings.
The Good: The RIM BlackBerry Pearl is the first BlackBerry to offer a 1.3-megapixel camera, music and video playback, expandable memory, and a mapping application. The supersleek phone also continues to offer superior push e-mail capabilities, EDGE support, and Bluetooth.
The Bad: The RIM BlackBerry Pearl’s microSD slot is inconveniently located behind the battery, and call quality was subpar in our tests. We also wish there were external controls for the music player and integrated Wi-Fi.
The Bottom Line: Though nothing revolutionary, the addition of multimedia features and the already solid e-mail capabilities make the RIM BlackBerry Pearl an attractive device for business users and consumers alike.
