I've had mine for about 8 hours now as well. So far, I have no complaints about speed.
A quick comment on my prior post of the JBenchmark results. To be fair, I will re-run the Benchmark without the wireless enabled. After I ran it and posted the results, I wondered if the wireless functionality might have been taking some horsepower in the background. I will re-run after this post.
I administer our BES server at work, and have experience with 6750, 7750, 7250, and 7130e (and the T-Mo and Nextel 7100's).
My previous phone was a Samsung i730 (with the recent Windows Mobile 5 upgrade).
This device "feels" faster than the other models I've used, especially faster than the 7130e. And also MUCH MUCH faster than the i730 in general menu response and navigation. Then again, the i730 was dog slow. I haven't expereinced (or noticed?) any lag in the menus, interfaces, or in anything I've been doing. I'm extremely pleased with the speed.
The screen is incredible, and on-par with the Samsung i730 I came from. I think the keyboard is phenomenal, but anything is better than the i730. I personally like the 8703e keyboard more than the 7250 and 7750 keyboards I've used. The keys on the 8703e are a little closer together as far as I can tell, but they feel bigger in a way.
@cdd543: Browser speed seems OK to me. mobile.blackberry.com was a little slow, but I think it was on their end. Then again, I didn't really notice much problem on the 7130e either. I'm usually in EVDO territory, so maybe that's part of why it feels so nice? Either way, it's definitely on-par with the i730 that I had.
I downloaded the Overlord-Icon theme from mobile.blackberry.com, and MAN it's nice... Very very nice, but then again, I'm a geek.
Some stupid little things I've noticed. I like the fact that the escape key clicks, makes for a much nicer tactile feedback. I also like the added shortcut key on the left edge. So far I love the auto-screen brightness (based on how bright the surroundings are).
Obviously, the 8703e has all of the tweaks that make the BlackBerry awesome. It was tough seeing all of the BlackBerries we were deploying, and how slick they worked... Comparing that to my Samsung i730 and how unstable, unreliable, and generally clunky it was (it doesn't even have a factory NumLock) makes the 8703e feel even nicer. So maybe I'm a bit jaded having used the i730 for the last two years.
As whsbuss mentioned, BBMessenger was not included. Was simple to install, and seems to work fine.
I've already dropped it once because of the dang "launcher" plastic belt holster. I've ordered a better belt clip/case. It can't get here soon enough... Heheh.
All-in-all, I'm extremely pleased with this guy. Then again, compared to the i730 I had, anything would be nice.