I talked Ryan into getting the new Blackberry 8700c, and he shares his thoughts. I got mine last week and I can honestly say it’s the (second) best phone I’ve ever used, and the best PDA. This is coming from the guy who founded the Houston PalmOS Users Group. Great screen, battery life, SMS and email support, and very intuitive UI. I also have a Blackberry 7520 (the one with GPS) and it’s a real clunker compared to the 8700. I’ve been recommending the 8700c to everyone I know. Now I just need to get SSH running on this thing…
Wait until the Nokia 770 gets PIM. It’s getting VoIP at the moment and SSH should be a snap because it’s Debian-based. SSH on the BB would cost you money. /Best wishes
Just wish I could find the money to get one of these!
Am stuck with a Nokia 6681. But, yes, it is a good value for money phone 🙂
Hey Matt,
Wish I ended up w/ more time at the meetup to phone-geek out w/ you 😉 I love the 8700c as well, and it definitely is the 2nd best I’ve ever had. If it had a camera and expandable memory I’d be in heaven.
Btw, for SSH you can use the free and very capable midpSSH or there is a pay for MobileSSH I believe.
Definitely the nicest Blackberry ever… especially in form factor and screen. But MAN, the battery doesn’t even last a day. Gotta stick with the Treo (4 days) until that happens. Also, I get the feeling they don’t care too much about supporting push-style email via IMAP. I was not able to set it up. So unless you buy the accompanying Blackberry email service, it’s of minimal email-checking use unfortunately.
Really? I haven’t had a problem with the battery at all. The Cingular one comes with an email thing you can set up to push, but like you said sync isn’t really available without the Blackberry Enterprise stuff.
What’s first?
Probably the Nokia 8800 or 8290, but the Blackberry is fast catching up due to its functionality.
Nokia 3220 is the best phone I have had. Currently, I have a crappy Motorola MPx 220.
That’s odd about the battery comment. Mine goes three days easy, but then again I’m not on it typing like a crazed primate 🙂
I have a 8700r, and the battery worried me at first, it reads 30% after a day or use, but keeps on going for another 3 days! Best phone in my books: Nokia 6620, then the 8700 is a close second. the Keyboard is obviously a big advantage, but camera, MMC card, all those smart phone features put the 6620 on top for me.
the nokia 8290 was fantastic… thought i would stick with nokia and got he 6682 – very buggy and slow. ugh. the blackberry 8700 on cingular was very nice – fast – battery great. prob would get used the interface after awhile..
OK, like everyone else I love my 8700c but with one huge exception: Is there anyway of having multiple reply addresses from the phone? I have my work and normal email forwarded to the BB but I can only respond from one of the accounts. I’m nervous about using the Treo 650 but if I can have that one feature then I’ll have to jump ship. Somebody save me!!