BlackBerry 8700c 

While there are some unique features in the 8700 it is the combination of features that separates the 8700 from other smartphones in the market.  The combination consists of:

1. Built in QWERTY keyboard (not just any QWERTY but a RIM designed one, more on this later)
2. Decent resolution screen (320x240) with 64k colors
3. Super bright screen with auto light adjustment based on ambient light
4. Decent size for viewing
5. Expanded Bluetooth 2.0
6. Relatively small physical size (when compared to other members of the RIM family as well as other major Smartphones)
7. Quad band with EDGE
8. A newer and more solid OS in version 4.1
9. Really outstanding speakerphone sound quality
10. Very good phone reception and clear sound with good noise cancellation
11. Integration with a Bluetooth Smart Card reader (Common Access Card)  No big sled to attach to the phone
12. Fast new Processor for really fast user experience
13. EDGE and quad band support for much faster and better browsing experience
14. A new and much improved browser

 Phone Performance - In prior reviews I have stated, "To me, a smart phone that does not work well as a phone is an over priced, over weight PDA.  I am always amazed at how many manufacturers don’t get this.  As a result, this is the first thing I evaluate and look for.  It is the one MAJOR shortcoming I find in the Blackberry line of smart phones." Well, RIM got it right this time in a big way.  It really works well as a phone.    Call clarity is exceptional, noise cancellation works well in all but the very worst (I would say impossible) environments.  The speakerphone is really loud and clear with no distortion.  The earpiece volume could be a little louder but it is acceptable and you can always turn on the speakerphone or use a headset.  The Bluetooth is such an improvement over the prior handsets that it is hard to describe.  The unit pairs easily and quickly and the sound quality is excellent.  The radio appears to be very good at locking on a signal and holding it.  In actual use I have not had it drop a call once (granted I am still in the early stages of testing).  Call clarity is also excellent with no background noise, hissing, crackling or pops and only with a very weak signal does the audio break up.  It can sometimes be difficult to ascertain when you do have an audio problem whether it is your unit, the other person’s cell phone, a weak signal or the headset being used by the other party.  My comments are based on calls to a land line phone so that I can eliminate as many of these other variables as possible.

  I have noticed that the Bluetooth radio is sensitive to placement and needs to be on the same side of the body as the headset to avoid crackles when paired with the Flamingo.  I haven't yet tested on the other headset but will do so in a follow up on this review.  I also noticed that the unit sometimes does not realize that the Bluetooth connection has been broken for 10-20 seconds after the fact.  This can occasionally leave the phone in a state of not being able to reconnect without turning off Bluetooth and turning it back on.  Still missing is a Bluetooth keyboard and the ability to link to a Bluetooth GPS unit (and of course the software to make that work).  I think it needs the ability to use a memory card so that functionality like GPS can be added.  Having had a phone with GPS (the HP HW6510) I can tell you that if you travel much it can really come in handy when you are in a strange place and need to find your way around.

  Having a quad band phone means you can use it almost anywhere in the world but for those of us having EDGE it really makes the wireless connectivity a viable and usable function.  Web pages load pretty quickly.  This puts it ahead of 1XRTT but behind EV-DO.  The browser actually becomes functional and usable.  I was amazed that I could load my PKI certificate and use web mail with its frames from this device.  Downloads are pretty quick too.

 I have been a big user of Microsoft’s Voice Command with PPC units and with the exception of not being able to use VC through the Bluetooth headset; I find it works very well for dialing the contacts in my phone book or digit dialing.  I also tried Fonix and found equally good results.  I prefer VC because of its caller ID voice announcement.  Unfortunately, this is still a major short coming that needs to be addressed.  I know everyone will not agree with me on this, but having to look at a small device, one handed type after scrolling to the address book and then more scrolling and clicking to dial a number while driving is just to difficult and too dangerous.  It really needs a voice command capability.  I think with the new chipset it may well be capable.  I know that there are several companies with very good technology available that could be converted to run on the new device.  I hope this happens soon.  If you are fortunate enough to have a handsfree car unit that supports this devices phonebook with voice recognition then you can get by without it.  I have the 2006 BMW 325i and it has that capability.  It's voice recognition is not quite up to the capability of the PPC versions but it is close and works with the 8700's address book.

Here is what the 8700c sounds like used outside in a quiet environment.

Here is what the 8700c call sounds like with the just the unit and then with the speakerphone used in the car.

Here is a recording of the 8700c in a very noisy environment and it may not have had the final release version of the OS.

This is a recording made at Dallas International airport using the Flamingo, then switching to the handset, then switching to the speakerphone.

 The keyboard, I had great trepidations about the new keyboard on a 0.2 inch less width device.  Especially since, when I first tried it at the San Francisco event, I found myself making more errors than usual.  Now having the device in hand and having used the keyboard more I am finding it to be far better than I expected and in some ways better than the 7290's.  My hands are average for a man 5'11" and 200lbs.  While I can thumb type on the HP HW 6510 and even the two Treo's I found myself avoiding using the keyboards on those devices because it was just uncomfortable and awkward enough to make it too difficult to use and I would find myself often waiting to respond to an email until I was back at a real computer.  Entering a web site or an email address was a pain on the other devices.  I find myself actually using the keyboard on this device which tells me a lot about the design.  One might ask what is it about the BlackBerry keyboard that makes it work better? First, despite the smaller width, the keys are actually the same size in area.  While the spacing between the keys is reduced, the layout shape was changed from a frown to a small imperceptible smile (maybe the guys at RIM have a sense of humor after all).  What I find is that my thumbs do not have to stretch as far as they do on the 7290 and I may actually type faster though I have to be a little more careful not to inadvertently hit more than one key.  They made a few changes in the key layout but these are minor and I think an improvement.  However, if you are used to the old placement it will take you a little while to acclimate. The lettering and numbering is large and bold faced making it easier to read the keys than the keys found on other non-BlackBerry devices.  I can't fathom why the other vendors insist on making keys with typefaces that are mostly unreadable.   Finally the backlighting is better on the BlackBerry because they had the sense to use a white light instead of some stupid trendy blue light that makes the keys unreadable day or night.  Where BlackBerry has always shined is in the integration of the keyboard with the OS.  The smart context sensing and the use of the Auto-Text feature makes typing on one superior to every other unit on the market.  There is some third party software that tries to accomplish the same thing for the Treo and it is better than nothing but it still isn't quite the same experience.  On the PPC front there is nothing even close, even on WM 5. You would think after all these years they could copy the BlackBerry on this aspect and get it right.  No one else has yet!  On the PPC a double space after the end of a sentence doesn’t automatically add a period and capitalize the first word of the next sentence.  Holding a key down doesn’t cause it to become upper case.  However, it will insert an apostrophe into a contraction.   It will not convert shorthand abbreviations into the spelled out word.  When you are in numeric fields in a form it doesn’t automatically put the keys into numeric lock and you can’t hold down a number key when in phone mode to get a long tone (like holding 1 to get voice mail).  RIM executives told me they did extensive testing of the new keyboard with various focus groups to ensure that the ergonomics worked well.  The bottom line for me is that I actually like the new keyboard and I think it is on par with the 7290.  None meet the old 950 keyboard for speed but it had even more width to work with.  I think RIM did a good job here and the improvement in the form factor is worth the slight period of adjustment.

 The new 320x240 screen is very bright and readable under almost any conditions from inside to bright sunlight.  Given the size of the device it is more than adequate to the task with fonts appearing relatively smooth and providing a good photo viewing and web browsing experience.  The auto adjusting brightness with a smart light sensor is a big plus even though it occasionally seems to behave in an unanticipated manor.  You can manually set the maximum brightness and you can set the time it will stay on when there is no activity.  You can also turn off the auto sense feature.  Another nice feature is that it comes with multiple themes and you can download the software to create your own custom themes which is really cool.

Pictures Courtesy of Megabit (Screen wall paper on unit is custom one created by Megabit)

Bluetooth on this unit shines.  There are profiles for headset, hands free, synchronization, address book linkage and serial for the Smart Card Reader  It is currently missing Dial-up networking, keyboard and GPS serial.  The hands free profile using a Bluetooth headset is the best I have seen.  Pairing is quick and easy and the sound quality and volume are great!  I tested this with the Flamingo and will be testing it with three different headsets, the Plantronics M3000 and the Plantronics V510 and the nXZEN Plus 5500.  Sync via Bluetooth works very well although getting it set up can be a little tricky because it requires the use of the Microsoft Bluetooth stack and will not work with the Widcom stack used by most vendors with their dongles.  On both my BMW and Lexus, the signal strength and other functions display properly on the in-car units.

Here is of the 8700c sound using the BMW hands free.

Here is the 8700c sound using the Lexus handsfree.

 Battery Life is another big plus for this unit, especially when compared to PPC units.  I have gone an entire day without seeing the bar drop off of 100%.  I have tested the unit's battery life on a daily basis since receiving it.  While no day has been what I would call real heavy usage, more like moderate to light usage with Bluetooth on and paired with one device or another, I am seeing typically less than 10% battery use from 7:30am to 10:00pm or later.  I have not tested in a continuous use basis; however, compared to my 7290 used under similar usage loads this is a big improvement.  The 7290 will typically shoe from 25% to 40% down at the end of the day.  I can usually get 3 days out of the 7290 before I need a recharge, I suspect the 8700 will do better.  Especially, when you consider I am doing more web browsing on the 8700 than I ever did or would do on the 7290.

 The plastic holster that comes with the unit is similar to other BlackBerry holsters but smaller.  It keeps the unit close to you and protects the screen.  It has a magnet that turns off the backlight and, I was told, puts the processor in a sleep/low power mode.  There is no comparison between it and the one HP uses that is actually worthless.  Like everyone else, I would like a leather holster and having seen one at the San Francisco event I know it can't be too far away.  I like the fact that the holster helps to keep the low profile for the unit and you don't have something sticking out to catch on everything.

  Operation of the unit is a big improvement with the new 312MHz processor.  The 7100t was so slow that it drove me crazy always waiting every time you navigated a menu or entered a digit to dial.  The 8700 is so fast that it is virtually instantaneous navigating menus and entering digits is also very quick.  It out performs the PPC 6700 with WM 5 & a 412MHz processor and the HP HW6510 with WM 2003 SE and 312 MHz processor.  Learning the icons is quick and easy and there are numerous shortcuts that once learned speed up operations even more.  The unit also has two button that can be assigned to other functions as shortcuts.  There is, of course, a great deal of speculation that the new side button will become the push to talk button once Cingular enables that feature and a software upgrade makes it usable on the 8700.

  Construction and feel.  The unit feels solid and the battery cover is snug  It weighs just enough to feel like a substantial piece of equipment without feeling like you are carrying a brick.  It slides and snaps into the carrying holster very nicely and is a quick draw to remove.  Once you learn the trick to removing a BlackBerry from the holster you wonder why no one else does it that way.  It is easy, quick and you are less likely to drop it.  I prefer the black color Rogers selected to RIM's selection of blue-grey and I would have preferred to have the screen plastic recessed to help avoid scratches.  I will be seeking a screen protector for the unit.  The unit has a very good feel in the hands, even better than the 7290 which also has very good hand feel.  Clearly, RIM recognizes that form must follow function and good ergonomics are a must.

Overall, I would have to give this unit a solid 9.5 rating.  I don't believe there is a better all around Smartphone on the market.  There are units with larger screens, bigger keyboards, higher resolution, faster processors and the ability to run more applications, but none that integrates what it does so well and runs on such a solid OS.  I highly recommend this unit to anyone seeking a Smartphone with a decent PIM, outstanding push email and excellent phone qualities.  According to conversations I had with three different managers at the San Francisco event (1 Intel, 1- Cingular and 1-RIM) the new chipset supports UMTS/HSDPA and with a firmware upgrade the phone could support the blazingly fast 400-700kbps speeds Cingular will be rolling out.  It will be interesting to see if Cingular makes the upgrade available.

There are a couple of glitches, in addition to the glitches experienced during the roll-out, that need to be addressed and mentioned.  Perhaps by the time I am ready to update this review these hitches will be resolved.

The first, is that for an unknown reason some customers receiving the unit are unable to get the Blackberry HTML browser to be activated and only the Cingular WAP browser appears.  In the photo above you can see the Cingular browser is the one with the Cingular logo on the globe and the globe with no Cingular logo is the BlackBerry HTML browser.  Some users have been unable to get the BlackBerry one to show up even after calls to Cingular and RIM with both contradicting the specifications quoted on the Cingular web site when the device was listed (briefly on Friday).  Check here.

On some units, you are unable to set up the Bluetooth synchronization because two services are missing, Desktop Connectivity and Wireless Bypass.  No one seems to know why it is on most units but not on others.  I had two units and one had it and one didn't.  Nothing I was able to do would restore the two services.  One user sent me a policy file to test but I had already repackaged the unit and was not able to test it.

I have also found some bugs related to the Smart Card Reader but it is premature to lay the problems on the phone as it could be with the reader software.  Other users have posted some minor bugs including an anomaly that occurs when you create an all day event that is a repeating event.  It disappears from the first entry but appears in subsequent entries and the way the calendar displays the current date in the agenda mode.

At least one user has reported the ability to use the device as a modem using the 7100t's software but it is unclear whether he is getting GPRS or EDGE performance.

Resolve the issues and bugs, add UMTS/HSDPA, provide for speaker independent voice dialing and I will give this unit a 10!!!

UPDATE 6/11/2006

After having the phone for over 6 months I can honestly say that it is still the best BlackBerry I have tried.  However, it isn't the best phone.  For some reason in Europe it works much better than in the U.S.  In the U.S. my wife complains every time I am in a noisy environment and sometimes even when I am in a quiet environment.  Also some people that call me I can't understand.  i am never sure whether it is their phone or mine but I am coming to think it is mine after my wife's complaints.  Sorry if I misled anyone and I found it so much better than the 7290 that I thought it was great.  I have now eaten my crow!