Quick review on new Blackberry 7100t. I needed the power of email on the fly and a phone that would hook up with the TL Bluetooth system. I didn't care about a camera or other consumer stuff that typically hogs space or battery. Given that background, I give a resounding thumbs up to the phone. It synches seemlessly with the Bluetooth (you do have to approve the "link" when you get in the car, but it is a popup radio button so it is a 2 second item). The phone itself has great reception (I moved from AT&T to T-Mobile so that was a no brainer). The new suretype typing system took about 20 minutes to get highly proficient. The access to IM is also a plus for quick messages that don't sit in your email inbox. Finally, it allows me to bcc every message to my computer's sent file, so I have a record of all of my sent emails (the received emails automatically go to your computer's inbox).

While I know alot of people like to have cameras and other gizmos, for business, this is the best phone I have seen (especially at a $199 price) for us 04 Acura TLers.

 

Thanks for your review...

Welcome to teh forum

 

Great review. This is one of my choices when my current contract is up. I'm also looking into the Treo with bluetooth.

 

My business uses BlackBerry's extensively in our organization. We have also chosen ATT as our vendor for wireless. That said, the new Blackberry 7290 will be available 11/1. It is the first quad-band Blackberry and has bluetooth. I'll post a review in a few weeks..



http://www.blackberry.com/products/b...ID=ILC-nah7290

 

Sorry.. the 7100 is also quad-band, so I was wrong about the 7290 being the first.

 

I saw that the 7290 was coming out soon. I know that it is currently in Europe. I think Cingular is the "first" to offer it, with others offering soon there after. I think that it will be a great choice. I am obviously jaded by the poor performance of AT&T service (I got service 1 out of 5 tries in ATL and NYC) and I didn't like Cingular all that much either. I think with the merger, AT&T hasn't spent the money necessary to upgrade their network. Anyway, I think that the 7290 will be a great choice (especially if your company wants you to use AT&T).

 

If you don’t want to do this every time you can set the TL to be trusted in the phone.

From the home screen on the 7100t go to tools -> settings -> Bluetooth
It will show a list of paired devices, with the wheel select the "HandsFreeLink TM" then device properties. Change the trusted option from no to yes and save the changes. You wont have to click the box anymore when you jump in your TL.

I agree this phone is very good, but one problem i have with it and the TL is no caller ID. Do you get inbound caller id?

 

I should be getting a 7290 soon as well. The company I work for got bought out recently and they're forcing everyone to switch to Cingular :-(. The initial release date for the 7290 on Cingular was supposed to be earlier this month. But the release got delayed and Cingular even pulled it from the list of phones on their website (they put back the 7280). It reappeared on their site last week and the person at my company who deals with the cell phones was supposedly placing an order for a bunch of them at the tail end of last week. So I should get it in my hands soon. With the newly introduced 7100 linking up fine, I'm hoping that the 7290 behaves the same way.

Mark

 

Just got the 7100t as well, great phone, i get good coverage with it, still trying to set up the bluetooth though...

 

I agree great phone!

 

Even though I don't like the design of the blackberry nor its implimentation of email and such, its definitely in the right direction of things to come.

 

Is AT&T really going to have the 7290 by 11/1, our rep told us it was going to be sometime in 2005.

Michael

 

tweaker-

Thanks for the tip. I will try that today.

One thing that I have noticed is that when using the hands free, the person I am talking too sounds very distorted kind of like the volume is turned up too high. I have tried turning down the volume on the car, but that doesn't seem to help. I thought maybe it was the handset volume, but I can't seem to adjust it when I am in the handsfree mode. It is puzzling, because it has just recently started when I call my wife on her cell. I am assuming that it is her cell phone not mine. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

BTW, one of the best things about the blackberry is being in a meeting and getting alot of messages about refinancing my mortgage and other "enhancements"

 

Anyone know if there is a bluetooth Blackberry that uses Nextel as the carrier? I need to retain nextel and would like to have the bluetooth for the car.

Thanks

 

Yes, I just ordered mine and was told it should be here by Friday. We are a large corporate account so we get some privileges, but if they are shipping to us, they should be ready for general distribution by 11/1.

 

I use the Nextel BB now, there are no Nextel models that have Bluetooth. I haven't seen or read anything about one in the works either. My guess would be a battery life issue, concidering how much juice the Nextel transmitter sucks already.

 

Since I got my Blackberry (for work) I haven't taken my laptop home once. I love being able to read and respond to emails just like I am at the office. I can be sitting at the bar or racetrack and people think I'm responding to their emails from my desk.

 

Interesting question above about Nextel <> Bluetooth. I'm not sure if there's a technical hurdle (frequency problem) or otherwise between iDEN and Bluetooth, or whether Nextel is afraid of people pushing data/removing data from mobile devices. The latter was Verizon's fear before they successfully locked down Bluetooth.

In informal use, I found the Nextel BlackBerry a bit goofy (with the antenna), and coverage is below average compared to the GSM/CDMA versions.

-josh

 

Just got my 7100t today. I had a SE P900 before. But I am enjoying this phone much more. The keyboard is not hard to get used to at all, and it paired very quickly.

However, I cannot get the Instant Messaging function on the phone to work. I called T-mobile about this. They say that none of the 7100t phones have a working Instant Message function! But their "engineers are working hard to solve the problem". Great. I would have liked to know that before I bought the phone. anyway, thought you all should know.

 

Ohh....after relogging into gmail, I got all my thread subscriptions emailed and saw this thread after our conversation on AIM. Like I said, I'll try to get my hands on a 7100t this weekend. I want to see how it connects to the internet and all that. I think its just a matter of setting ports. Give me a couple days since end of the semest is kicking my...whoa, look at the time, gotta get some work done.

 

I haven't had any trouble with IM. I use it for personal conversations that don't need to go through the Company network server.

I have had now had this phone about a month and I am very happy with it. I would suggest that you buy plastic screen cover to keep the face from getting scratched. I found that the holster scratches the glass so I went on line and bought plastic sheets that cover the glass face, keeping it from scratching.

 

Thank you very much for your reply. I have been back and forth with T-Mobile on this issue. Its "starting" to work now, but there are still a couple of bugs. Im more optimistic now at least.

One of the things now thats bothering me is that my buddy list has not transferred from my AIM to my blackberry. Do I have to re-enter all the names on my AIM buddy list onto my blackberry IM list? Thank you, in advance for any reply.

 

Is there a Blackberry with Bluetooth that works on the Verizon network?

greg

 

what about this phone?good or bad

 

I am not sure. To be honest with you, I don't use IM all that often. I never used it on my desk top. So, I only use it to communicate with a few people.

 

I saw a post in this thread about CallerID not going to the HandsFreeLink dash display.... does this work or not?

I'm supposed to get a trail phone from my provider (Cellular One) next week. I gave up on the iPAQ 6315--would link with HFL, but only after call was dailed or answered. With the 7100 let you dial numbers and names from HFL?

Thanks.