vB Easy Archive - My Personal 7100i Review

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My Personal 7100i Review
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Posted by: juwaack68

I've had this new 7100i in my hands since about 8:00am EDT this morning - a whole 12 hours. Had the 7520 yesterday, and the 7510 when I first got a BB last year. After this short 'test' period, I will NOT be going back to the 7520 and already have plans to redeploy it to someone else who is still using the (ancient, in my view) 7510. Here are the differences I've found so far (for what they're worth):

- The screen resolution is 100 times better than the 7520. Yes, the screen is a bit smaller, but the resolution more than makes up for it.

- I like that (most of) the icons change a little when you scroll over them. For example, when I scroll over calendar icon, the little 'day' page flips up. When I roll off that icon, the 'day' page flips back down. Makes it easier to see where I'm at.

- And that little blue dot that highlighted icons is gone - replaced by 4 square brackets around the 'corners' of each icon. They're still blue, though.

- I really LOVE the phone connect and hangup buttons. Instead of having to hold in the Esc key to hang up a call, I just press the red hangup button - much like a regular cell phone.

- The programmable button inbetween the green and red phone buttons is very nice. With one touch I can go into whatever application I set that button to, from anywhere (program under Options / screen/keyboard).

- The Direct Connect button is on the side, where it should be.

- The attenae is shorter...so it's not nearly as annoying as the 7520.

- When I compose a message, I am not FORCED to add a recipient first - I get to the email message and can type in the message first, then the subject, THEN the recipient. Or whatever order I want. Very nice.

- There are only 13 programmable speed dial keys...but that's ok, I didn't have all 26 programmed before. I don't even know 26 people well enough to give them their own key.

- The calculator is MUCH better. Before you could press the numbers on the keypad when using it, but the +, -, x, and / signs were not easy to remember and I found myself scrolling to them - which made it very cumbersome. Now since the numbers are right in the middle of the keypad, the screen shows which buttons correspond to the +, -, x, and / signs.

- There are a LOT more ringtones (but where can I get more?) and I like being able to assign a specific ring tone to a contact.

- I can now view my Tasks on my Calendar (setting under Calendar options).

- There is a new profile for 'Off' that just turns all noises/vibrations off. On my 7520 I had created a 'Silent' profile, so this is nice to have as a default (and it can't be edited so it is user-proof!)

- You can also silence all tones with the new button on the top.

- I was able to reload almost all of the other apps I had (BBSpell, TeleNav, BBLight, Berry411) without a problem. METAMessage wouldn't load though. No version for the 7100i yet.

- Enterprise Activation was a SNAP.

- Searching for a name in the Address Book is very easy since it uses something called "Use Address Book as data Source". Basically it already knows what names you have to choose from so when you type the name it doesn't use letter combinations that don't exist.

- The SureType typing took about 20 minutes to get used to. The darn Del key is in the wrong spot though, since I keep typing L instead of deleting things

- You can now set a default backlight brightness from 0-44. I think the default is 24.

- SMS WORKS! I can now receive a message sent to my email from a cell phone, see who it's from AND reply to it! That is one thing I did miss with the other devices, as did many of my user base.

- I can now easily hide the sent items by going in the Message/Options.

- Instead of using T or B to get to the top or bottom of my message list, I now press the ER button for top or CV for bottom (thanks to someone on HowardForums for that tip!).

Hope that helps anyone who is thinking about or will be getting one of these. I highly recommend it...at least to people who aren't freaked out by the keyboard.

Posted by: amc

Thanks for the review - I have a b'day coming up and I think I know what I am going to get.

I work in the healthcare field and am about to be more independent and will likely be getting a LOT more calls where I will be wishing I had more of a phone than a BB so I think this may come in handy.

Posted by: purephase

Thanks for the review. I've seen others, but none were nearly as comprehensive as this. It re-affirms my initial impressions that this is the device that I've been waiting for and I cannot wait until it is available on Telus.

Thanks!

Posted by: hi-tech

Good review..I agree and probably won't be going back to my 7520 either.

Default brightness on mine was 100.

Also add, LED shows coverage area as well. I hated not having this on the 7520/10

Note for the 7520, With the latest update to the the OS - 4.0.2.49? The calculator is updated and is similar to the 7100i. The buttons match up with the calculator functions - no need to remember what button does what.

Posted by: amc

Yeah - when I got my replacement BB it had newer software (I had yet to update the software on my old one before sending it in) and went into the calculator function and was surprised to see that it was all different.

Posted by: hi-tech

Just realized the LED also shows bluetooth status. - Flashes green when theres signal, red for (messages, emails..etc...) and blue when theres a bluetooth connection. Nice...

Posted by: akorn007

when i click to go into mapquest in the 7100i it freezes the whole phone
then i have to take the battery out to reset the phone.
anyone know whats causing this???
please help

i would hate to get another phone

Posted by: martin_j001

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry 7520.|: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry7100i/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/103)

I would delete the mapquest app and then try downloading it again--see if that helps at all. Other than that, I know telenav required a 7100 specific version to run properly, the same may be true of mapquest??