Gadget of the Week: new BlackBerry 8700c
November 2, 2005 by Mike Wendland
I’ve been a BlackBerry fan for a long time but lately, I’ve found myself drawn more and more to the beautiful simplicty of its e-mail sending and receiving. This latest version - the 8700c - looks like the best model yet. I’ve been carrying a Treo 650 Smartphone and the BB… if this new model is as good as it seems, I’m putting the Treo up for sale on eBay and signing up with Cingular. Cingular’s new BlackBerry . I can get used to the differences with the contacts and calendar functions of the BlackBerry. What has stopped me before was the clunkiness of the BB phone. That seems to be solved with the 8700c. And since it works on Cingular’s high-speed EDGE network, the draw is hard to resist.
Anybody have experience with the Cingular network?
No experience with the Cingular network, though I’m a big fan of Sprint. Their new high speed data network is raising the bar for the entire industry. I’d wait for Sprint to carry this model, especially after hearing about all the billing issues people have had with Cingular.
I also prefer the Treo since I can run all the PDA apps I like, most of which are free or very inexpensive.
Cingular is not so bad, but the EDGE network and GPRS are going to be considered slow compared to the new Sprint/Nextel networks. Also, a close friend with a Blackberry 7100 is extremely dissapointed with the audio quality of the phone. Most of his calls sound awful to me sound awful. As with all Blackberrys they are PDA first and phone second.
Mike - just curious, some time ago you wrote that you had returned to paper, opting out of the Palm calendaring world. Is that still the case? And what about Macs - do you still use Macs or has the tablet pc moved into that position?
I’m using Franklin/Convey calendaring, reminding myself on my Sprint Treo 650 with electronic jots.
Macs are my main platform (desktop and laptop) but I do use and enjoy the Tablet quite a bit. (WIsh Apple would make one). I’m looking forward to trying a new super lightweight Fuji tabet in a couple of weeks.