[bperkins]

Well I returned my 7100T (my first BB) after playing with it a few days. I really did like it (especially the rate plan), but I simply could not put up with the poor coverage of Cingular/ATTWS. In addition to coverage issues the poor battery life and not being able to read the screen in the sun where the other reasons for returning.

I purchased it from a TMobile rep who activated it for me to use it in NC, he set me up on TMobiles National Plan since they do not have native coverage here. The closet TMobile service area was SC.

I had Cingular about a year ago, and they have some major dead/weak spots here in Greensboro.

Yesterday I decided to buy the 7750 from Verizon. Great device, but I cannot believe that VZW did not load a browser on this thing. My understanding from searching these boards I have buy a third party browser (that or buy BES to load the browser on the device, and this is not a viable option since we are a small business and it would not be worth the $800 for just one BB) in order to use the internet on it...shame on you VZW. I got the unlimited data plan and I cannot even browse the internet. Are there any other browser options out there? If I could find someone with a BES could I have them load the browser on my 7750?

The other problem is I am unable to view pics like the 7100T. Is this option only on the 3.8 that comes with the 7100T? And on 4.0?

I really hope that RIM is able to produce a device similar to the 7290 for Verizon in the near future because I look funny when talking on this thing :->. I would love a smaller form factor BB for VZW. I think it was BBFinch that noted that it might not be possible since the CDMA chipset is larger and therefore they had to go with the larger size.

[lrdiaz]

Do you have Nextel coverage?
They market the 7510, with browser, speakerphone, etc.

[bperkins]

Yes we do, they have slightly better coverage than Cingluar but not as good as VZW (at least in our experience). I am not trying to say that VZW is the best, but in our area they are much stronger than Cingular, ATTWS, and Nextel. I have friends in other areas of the US and they swear by ATTWS. No Wireless carrier is perfect for everyone.

Our company switched over from Nextel back when LNP went live because we found that the areas that our sales personnel travelled to could only get an analog signal from VZW.

[buckZor]

I actually got pretty good reception in the greensboro area, I had a 7230 at the time, but TMobile service. I believe all of our BB users in Greensboro are using Verizon though. Be forewarned, Verizon is supposed to be moving to the same system of coverage as TMobile in the future.. I couldnt get a Verizon tech to tell me when it will happen but he did know what I was talking about.. I believe its the inevitable shift from GSM to GPRS. *shrug*

On a side note: I don't know how ANYONE could go back to the drab, boring display of a normal black/blueBerry after having the splendor that is the 7100t.

[mikegold]

Originally Posted by buckZor

I actually got pretty good reception in the greensboro area, I had a 7230 at the time, but TMobile service. I believe all of our BB users in Greensboro are using Verizon though. Be forewarned, Verizon is supposed to be moving to the same system of coverage as TMobile in the future.. I couldnt get a Verizon tech to tell me when it will happen but he did know what I was talking about.. I believe its the inevitable shift from GSM to GPRS. *shrug*

On a side note: I don't know how ANYONE could go back to the drab, boring display of a normal black/blueBerry after having the splendor that is the 7100t.

Huh?
Verizon is CDMA, T-Mobile is GSM. GPRS is a service on GSM.

[bperkins]

Depends where you are in Greensboro. Jefferson Road that runs perpendicular to Friendly Avenue, and New Garden Road has poor coverage, in fact there is a dead spot on this road right before crossing Hobbs Road.

And my house which is near there has little or no coverage.

As for VZW...are you saying that they will switch from CDMA to GSM? Not going to happen.

Yeah the 7100T does have a gorgeous screen, but it is not worth the trade off of having the battery drain faster b/c of it. At least I can leave the 7750'a screen on all day and night with out draining the battery.

[TonyJ]

I have a 7750 with VZW. In order to get browser functionality you have two options.

Option 1)
Hosted BES w/ MDS. This can be had for $10/month with myblackberry.us and will enable the built in blackberry browser. You also have the ability to run any TCP/IP apps with this option. The obvious dowside is that it's $10 additional per month and you'll also need Outlook 2003 in order to sync the device to myblackberry.us' server. Older versions of outlook won't work because of myblackberry's configuration.

Option 2)
Mobileweb4u WAP hosting service. This option is $30 for a year. You'll also need to eventually buy the browser, which is another $30. The ReqWireless browser is HTML only, no WAP. This makes things a bit interresting as most HTML is not formatted for the small screen. But on the other hand everything is in HTML. This option will not allow you to do anything other than web browsing at the moment.

You'll want to look at your requirements and make your own decision. I've tried both. I ended up with myblackberry.us so that I could run apps other than just browser and could do true WAP. It's costing me more, but I feel I can justify it for the time being.

When I contacted Verizon about this a few weeks ago, they stated that they plan to offer WAP service, however could not provide a time frame. Generally, I take this to mean "don't hold your breath" when it comes to carriers. If you have any further questions, let us know.

[bperkins]

Thanks Tony! I forgot to metion that I am a Mac user so using option will not work for me. I am leaning towards option 2. Have you used Mobileweb4u? If so, is it really slow since it loads html? How good is the formatting to the BB screen? Do you have to scroll all over the place?

I called VZW Business support this morning, and inquired about the browser. I played dumb and questioned why they had pictures of a browser in the manual, but not on the device. As expected the rep (not a data rep) told me that I would have to have the BES server to load the browser. I then questioned why it was not available to personal users like myself, and she replied "that is just the way it is". Thanks VZW.

[BB_WayCool]

Bperkins, I am using MobileWeb4U with Reqwireless, a 3rd Party browser. My company does not have a BES, but forwards all my emails so even without the ability to browse, it would be worth the unlimited data plan.

In terms of MobileWeb4U, forget about doing any heavy duty browsing. The best use I found was locating mobile sites that are designed to be light on images, virtually all text etc. The ones I have bookmarked are:

USA Today
Mapquest
Accuweather
Yellow Pages
White Pages
ESPN
Movie Times
MSN

MobileWeb4U has a bunch of these sites listed on their website and you can google around searching on mobile web sites to find others.

At this point, if you want better browsing capability, this is not the product for you. If you always want to be connected, particularly with email, you make sacrifices. If you want coverage, particularly in the East US, Verizon is king.

[jason3fc]

Ha Brad..

I guess you couldnt wait on the 7290 could ya?

Its interesting, I use an MPx200 on AT&T Wireless now. Im dropping it for cingular, because the coverage area here in Florida for Cingular is HUGE. Half of the time now ever since they opened up an agreement, my phone goes roaming on Cingular.

I think the cingular network here and the 7290 will make a nice combo... Once they even have it for sale.

[Mark Rejhon]

Buckzor,

I don't know how ANYONE could go back to the drab, boring display of a normal black/blueBerry after having the splendor that is the 7100t.

While the 7100 display is much more dazzling indoors, I should point:
- The 7280 blueberry has 3 times longer battery life than the 7100 series
- The 7280 blueberry is about 50 times more readable in sunlight because it is a reflective screen (The 7100 is not reflective and depends on the backlight which is affected by sunlight)
- The 7280 blueberry is fully readable with the backlight turned off even indoors in fluorescent lighting
- It is a little more discreet. Nobody complains if I use my 7280 in a movie theater, restaurant, bed, etc. The screen is dim enough not to distract surrounding people.
- More rugged. I keep dropping my 7280 all the time.

Productivity in all lighting situations is more important to me, ruggedness more important so I prefer thick shock-absorbing plastic casing even if the 7100 is a BETTER looking phone. And I find the battery life is vastly superior on the 7280 than the 7100.

The 7100 is an amazing phone and much better for multimedia use -- but I point out the advantages of the 7280, including its screen.

So I take defense in that there are good reasons to say the 7280 screen is superior for certain usage patterns (battery life, outdoors, discreetness etc). It may be boring for photographs, but it is amazingly readable for emails outdoors, and perfectly readable for my eyes indoors.

(Remember, you can use the same fonts on the 7100 on the 7280 too... I use BBMillibank Tall 10 Point, which looks a lot like the 7100 default email font.)

[bperkins]

Originally Posted by jason3fc

Ha Brad..

I guess you couldnt wait on the 7290 could ya?

Its interesting, I use an MPx200 on AT&T Wireless now. Im dropping it for cingular, because the coverage area here in Florida for Cingular is HUGE. Half of the time now ever since they opened up an agreement, my phone goes roaming on Cingular.

I think the cingular network here and the 7290 will make a nice combo... Once they even have it for sale.

Nah. Although I would love to have it on Verizon, I just cannot deal with poor coverage. Maybe one day they will improve it here. By that time Verizon will have one similar to the 7290....yeah right.

[buckZor]

I must say I am enjoying not walking around talking into a scientific calculator though ;-P I can understand the 7100t is not for everyone, just 99.99997 percent of the population.

[RIOS]

Mark Rejhon
I'm a newbie to bb, although an old hand to PDAs.

Wanted to thank you for all the info. It has been very helpful.

To my question, you mentioned that the 7100 battery life was considerably shorter than that of the 72xx series.

I'm trying to decide between the two, have tried the keyboards for a couple of hours each, and was leaning toward the 7100 based on the feature set and comfort with the predictive type software. What worries me is battery life.

Was your comparison based on a 7100 backlight level comparably dim to the72xx?

I found that 25 or 30% on the 7100 was quite nice. Less was fine indoors. Did't try outdoors yet.

Any help would be appreciated.

[bperkins]

Originally Posted by RIOS

Mark Rejhon
I'm a newbie to bb, although an old hand to PDAs.

Wanted to thank you for all the info. It has been very helpful.

To my question, you mentioned that the 7100 battery life was considerably shorter than that of the 72xx series.

I'm trying to decide between the two, have tried the keyboards for a couple of hours each, and was leaning toward the 7100 based on the feature set and comfort with the predictive type software. What worries me is battery life.

Was your comparison based on a 7100 backlight level comparably dim to the72xx?

I found that 25 or 30% on the 7100 was quite nice. Less was fine indoors. Did't try outdoors yet.

Any help would be appreciated.

The 7100t was my first Blackberry. As I said before I returned it for the 7750. If I had to do it over again I would not doubt go with the 7750. I absolutely love this thing, now I know why everyone is so obsessed with Blackberry's.

As Mark pointed out the battery life is so much better on the 77XX series in part due to the screen. I rarely have to use the backlight, because it is so readable (most importantly outside) without it. I can go at least three or four days on the 7750 without a charge. With the 7100T I could go about 1.5 days before needing to recharge. I did like the Suretype, but I can type so much faster on the 7750. I really prefer the full keyboard as opposed to the Suretype since I do send a lot of SMS and emails. Either way they are both great devices, the 7750 just happened to be a better fit for me.

[buckZor]

7100 battery life to me compares more to a "normal" cell phone than the traditional style blackberry. There have been some rumors of an extended battery for the 7100, but for my lifestyle I won't need it. I could see how heavy users might though.. As with all things in life, its a tradeoff.