[TBC]

hi paulmac & cwemely,

thanks for sharing. so i walked down to TMO on my lunch break to see the working 7290 they had. i spent some time with a working 8700g last night. the thing that worries me is that the working 8700g i used last night was a demo model but the keypad was in very very bad shape. i could wiggle one keypad and i would see the entire kepad uint wiggle. that's how loose the keypads were. you could these spaces/gaps for all of the keys. sorry if that doesn't make sense but that's the best i can describe it. i know it was a demo copy but if that's what my 8700g would look like after a while that's not a good thing.

i must admit that i am very spoiled from my Treo 650 keypad but i am fed up with the unstable OS. i couldn't figure out how to browse the web on the 7290 so i will go back and do some surfing to get a better idea. i'm thinking it's around the same speed as my Treo 650 so it wouldn't be a huge disapointment to me. I'm much more an AIM SMS Email user anyways.

so for now i will keep reading and end up back and TMO a few more times this week. i think i'm still leaning towards the 7290 at this point. i know it's still a good BB because so many of you still have them as a backup. i'll prob take the same path you guys did... 7290 -> 8700g but for a newb to BB's i still think the 7290 might be the best choice.

thanks again for sharing with me, i really appreciate your help! will keep you posted on my decision.