Customer Reviews

RIM Blackberry 7100G GSM Phone AT&T Rogers T-Mobile Unlocked (Scratch & Dent)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm part of the market RIM targeted for this phone - people who really didn't want to carry that blocky blue thing and wanted something a bit more phone-like. Looking around the building, I think they're succeeding, but wow, what a terrible phone.

Physically: the phone is light - it also feels flimsy and the casing feels fake. I've already dropped it a few times (par for the course for me in general), and it's survived, but I feel like a stiff wind causes some risk. The screen is already scratching, though slightly and unobtrusively.

Blackberry-like features: I also won't extol the virtues of the Blackberry - either you get it or you don't - except to say that Outlook/Exchange integration is excellent, the best Calendar integration, in particular, that I've seen. I don't know why the Contacts don't sync wirelessly, which for me isn't much of a problem but may be more difficult for others. I get emails to my Blackberry faster than they appear in my Outlook. Level 1 messaging, which isn't defined absolutely anywhere for the customer, is a great feature. I cannot comprehend why you can't default the mailbox to your inbox, rather than the everything-you-do-box, but c'est la vie.

Much gnashing of teeth about the keyboard. I can empathize, but having never used the normal Blackberry keyboard, I can't compare. I don't love SureType - it doesn't pick up new words well, and I'd like some autocomplete - but it's fine. My bigger problem with the keyboard is I mistype all the time, and I have small fingers. Not sure what happens to the larger-digited among us.

My real complaint, though, is that the basic functionality of a phone is _painful_. I ask very little from a cell phone: mostly, I want quick access to the address book, so I can find names when I'm at a traffic light or walking, and I want to do it without looking at the screen very much. In this, the Blackberry fails miserably. I have to turn this dial and click that and type lots of letters and then turn the dial again. Makes me want to throw the thing out the window. This is not a hard problem - every manufacturer has solved it! - RIM could do so too.

I want easy-to-lookup Contacts (one problem with the Contact Outlook integration is I don't have names like "Joe" and "Mom" and "Home" in my contacts), but I concede the problem there, though it's solvable.

I'm getting mixed results on the reception, either with the phone held to my face or with the included headset.

So yeah, I'd buy it again, but I'd hold my nose.

(Wrote the same review for the 7100g and 7100t, since they're the same phone)

If you already use a BlackBerry, you don't need me to spend a bunch of time talking about how useful the mail service is. If not, there are plenty of articles about the basics. So, I'll focus on this phone's useability and shortcomings as compared to previous BlackBerries and as compared to other smartphones.

The first thing you notice about the phone is the feature you will appreciate the most; the large color screen. I love how everyone harps on the size of the BlackBerries. The fact is that you can't have a large screen and a keyboard on a phone the size of a matchbook. The size of the unit is about as compact as could possibly be expected for what it does.

The second thing you will notice is that the battery cover is slightly loose. This makes the whole phone feel cheap, which is a shame because it's actually well-made other than that one flaw. You do get used to it, but it's amazing how much a small defect like that can change your perception of the phone.

The useability of the unit is as good or better than the previous iteration of the BlackBerry, the 7290. It takes a few seconds to grasp that instead of having a screen full of icons that you scroll through to get things done, you now have a compact text menu that accomplishes the same thing, usually faster than before since you have fewer things to scroll through to get where you are going. I like it better.

Another big improvement: this thing is much easier to hold and use as a phone than any other BlackBerry. Hands down. No possibility of accidentally hanging up on your call because the side-mounted escape key does not perform that function anymore. This was one of my most severe criticisms of older BlackBerries. Now you have a real dial and hangup key. Much better. Also the earpiece is natural and the sound is much clearer. Older units were almost impossible to keep centered on your ear and the sound volume rarely was high enough.

The Bluetooth functionality is still nearly zero. I can't tell you how annoying that is. I keep hearing that they are planning on un-crippling it soon but for now the only thing you can use with it is a wireless headset. The one I have worked pretty well with the older BlackBerry units but I find that the volume is too low on this new one. Maybe there is a software or firmware upgrade that will fix this, but I have not explored that yet. NOTE TO RIM: FIX THE BLUETOOTH. NOW. (UPDATE: BlackBerry still has not fixed the Bluetooth. I have now been through three units via warranty exchange and have used three different brands of Bluetooth headsets. None have corrected the volume, and all produce an echo that is heard by the other party but not by myself. Very disappointing. I am seriously considering the 8700c as an upgrade.)

Another thing, and this applies to all BlackBerries not availing themselves of the expensive but excellent BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) software solution: there is no "wireless sync" of your email, even though the option appears on your phone. I cannot understand why they don't grey out the option so that users can avoid spending their precious time trying to chase this handy but unavailable feature. With BES, however, your corporate Exchange Server will be continuously and wirelessly synced with your Outlook. This is the ultimate solution.

Failing BES, which ordinary users without a corporate server will never have, (plus it costs $2500, making it hard for small businesses to afford either - are you listening, RIM?) you can choose to use the Web Server or the Desktop Redirector. I recommend highly that you stick with the Web Server. The Redirector forces you to keep your desktop computer on all the time, and it is annoying even when it is working properly. Web Server is the way to go here.

With the Web Server, your emails come to you realtime, automatically. It's great, and is the key attraction to BlackBerry in the first place. As to the functionality of composing emails, I can only say that the full QWERTY keyboard of the 7290 and other iterations of the BlackBerry is better than this one. I miss it. On the 7100, there are two letters per key, and the phone figures out what you are trying to spell using predictive text software. Generally it works OK, but it is tedious to spell proper names, technical words, etceteras. You need a little more patience. On the other hand, it's a giant leap forward compared to regular phones where you have to multitap to get the right letters. Further, what you give up in text entry you gain in phone dialing, which is MUCH easier on the 7100.

This is a true integrated device. When someone calls, it instantly looks up your contact and displays the name as it appears in your Outlook address book. If someone emails you, when you open the email, if you click the wheel the options that are presented are specific to that email; only options that you can actually accomplish will show. You can call the contact who emailed you from this screen, respond to the email, SMS that contact, etceteras. No lookup is required.

I found the sync between Outlook and the 7100 to be flawless. MUCH BETTER than Palm OS, and as a longtime Palm user (since 1995) I know what I'm talking about. You can even sync it to multiple address databases (I sync to my personal addresses and my corporate addresses simultaneously) and it did fine with 4500 addresses in memory. It has NEVER locked up on me or performed even a soft reboot.

There are a bunch of ringtones, which I could care less about, but they are now polyphonic which is a large leap forward for RIM. And, a speakerphone that actually works rather well.

The holster is great as long as you don't try to clip it to your belt or anything else. In other words, it's useless. The holster on the 7290 was very useful and well made. Not sure why RIM moved away from that - big mistake. You won't use the holster. I recommend you just carry the phone in your hand or pocket. Choose a pocket that doesn't have keys or change, though, because this thing will get scratched if you don't take care of it.

Overall, I like the phone. I just hope that RIM will address its shortcomings in the next round and come up with the ultimate integrated phone solution (which - trust me on this - doesn't currently exist. Period.) I think it's the best available, including every Windows Mobile device, every Palm device, and every Symbian device, many of which I'm familiar with either from personal experience or from having researched them. The 7100 should tide you over until the ultimate phone does eventually get created. We are probably within a year or so of a five star smartphone, for those of you that can be patient.

This is a very good cell phone and Amazon.com gives the best deal. But, you can't transfer your old phone number from different provider to Cingular through Amazon.com. If you transfer your old phone number, you won't get your mail-in rebate. Please read amazon.com mail-in rebate rules carefully!!!
You can read about how to transfer your number through this link : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/508597/102-6686881-6992121

On my request quest for mobile e-mail, I purchased the BlackBerry 7290 from Cingular. While that phone had a good color screen and filled my require for bluetooth, I found it to be an absolute brick to carry around and to hold to your face when a regular phone was desired.

The BlackBerry 7100g released a week later and I promptly traded in my Blackberry 7290 for this one. This device is almost perfect. The screen is large and vivid and very easy to see. It has all of the features that are common to the blackberry's such as the scroll wheel.

The thing that impressed me most with this device is its usability as a phone. While larger then today's typical cell phone, it is modeled after the candy bar phone and is very comfortable to hold and talk on. The reception is typical compared to my other phones. Having bluetooth and speaker phone both combined into this device makes it the most usable phone that BlackBerry has available.

The only things this device lacks are:

Camera
Real Music/Sound Ringtone capabilities
MMS messaging capabilities

Until now, the cell phones I've been carrying around, get smaller and ligher with each iteration. My last cell phone was a Siemens SL56 - so you can imagine the flashback to late 90s I had when I got my BlackBerry 7100g. Due to my job and the amount of email I get, my company bought me one. I've been pleasantly surprised, the good most definitely outweigh the bad so I'll go through them below.

Good
1) Email push is wonderful. Real-time emails from my corporate server and my gmail account. Now when I'm in a meeting or on travel I can increase productivity by not having to wait to answer email. I can respond to friends faster also.
2) Speakerphone. This is the loudest, most clear speakerphone I have ever heard.
3) WAP brower/screen size. I don't know the exact dimensions but it's a big screen.
4) Price - this is cheaper than the smart phones with better email integration.
5) Weight - it's surprisingly light for a phone this size.
6) Holster sensor - this is really cool. You can set your phone profile differently depending on whether its in or out of the OEM holster. Ingenious.
7) Suretype - some people hate this. Since I've never had a previous BB and my previous text messages were painfully composed on a standard numeric keypad on the Siemens SL56 - the suretype technology is wonderful. In the 2 weeks I've had the phone, I've sent over 100+ messages and have only corrected a word manually 5-6 times due to Suretype picking up the wrong word.
8) PIM synchs faster than the IPAQ to my desktop.
9) Scrolling wheel for navigation - again - this is so much better than arrows or 4-way buttons. The wheel is just way more intuitive. It somewhat simulates the scroll on a mouse.
10) Multi-tasking: You can have multiple applications going on simultaneously including a voicecall.

Bad
1) Size - even though its got a better form factor than previous series, it still feels like a brick especially when I hold it up to my face.
2) Regular voice-calls. I hear other ppl perfectly. I've been told that if I'm talking in the car while the window is down, I'm incomprehensible. I could get away with something like that on my previous cell phones.
3) "No voicemail" SMS popups - when all of your voicemails are checked it sends an annoying SMS that your mailbox is empty. You have to manually delete/close the popup. I know I'm picking at little things, but it's the little things that really annoy me. If anyone knows how to bypass this, let me know.
4) Answering a call. It's a little tedious. You either have to press a tiny green call button or push the scroll wheel in (if you have bog fingers you could easily accidentally scroll to the "ignore call" option and send someone to voicemail by accident. Wish they would have a bigger more obvious button to answer voice calls.

Overall though, I'm really pleased with this phone. If it were a little smaller - it would be a 5 star phone. I've never owned a BB so maybe I'm being too easy on RIM, but this is a nice feature packed phone which is perfect for the corporate user from a data/voice perspective.

I have a very unique experience with the Blackberry 7100. For the reason that my first purchase of a PDA-phone was a Treo 650. I used the Treo 650 for exactly one week, and then traded it in for my current Blackberry 7100. The Blackberry 7100 is vastly superior for a few signifigant reasons.

The reasons are the smaller size of the Blackberry 7100 is outstanding. The Blackberry's e-mail is much easier to sync with my corporate e-mail (which is the main reason I purchased the Treo 650 in the first place), and the phone quality is simply excellent. The Treo's phone was too large and the volume was insufficient.

Lastly, the Blackberry is the easiest full PDA phone you will ever use. The new Blackberry has accomplished what they set out to do from the begining. That is to create a phone with an e-mail , browser, and contact manager, that will take you a few days to become comfortable with, not a month.

After carrying around a pda and a phone, I decided to go for something that included both functions effectively. I had a "smartphone" before and though it was small and nice, it was very difficult to type in appointments and data with the tiny keys in it. The Windows Mobile was pretty good but not what I really wanted. I purchased this phone and immediately saw that I no longer had to bring 2 devices with me. I have a good function phone with great PDA functions included. I also set up the phone to receive my personal and my work email. Its good to have all these features in one phone. The bluetooth works flawlessly and though the phone is a bit on the bulky side, its not very heavy or uncomfortable. I recommend this phone if you are tired of carrying 2 devices to keep your schedules, tasks and emails. Really good phone with great features.

If your looking for a slick thin phone that has 100 options and gadgets and advertises with the chic crowd...you know someone wearing sunglasses advertising it, then this phone is not for you. If your like me and and you spend 50 hours a week at work a lot of it traveling and you need the basics done well then this is the phone. No it doesn't have a camera and no it doesn't play music. It does do a really good job of "pushing' ur emails to you, sync's well with your PIM, the phone is definitly the loudest(one of my pet peeves with my other phones was that even all the way up I could barely hear)phone in the earpiece. I 've gotte great reception, the screen is just the right size. I think the browser works well. I've not yet had a probelm with battery life. If I had to describe the phone its a work horse for business. The 3rd party software is limited but the only thing I use is a E wallet. I recommend it.

Praise:
1. The new PocketMac software for sync-ing Blackberry to Mac is fantastic.
2. The reception is excellent.
3. Battery life is very robust.
4. Screen resolution is better than average.
5. Menu layout is fairly intuitive and navigation is simple.
6. USB charging capability is handy.

Complaints:
1. Mac users, the PocketMac software doesn't come with the phone. It's available aftermaket only.
2. The trackwheel is undersized and difficult to roll accurately.
3. Because BlackBerry contracts to info-secure government agencies, the bluetooth doesn't support any data transfer whatsoever. Forget using salling clicker or any other fun/useful bluetooth application.
4. The plastic casing is thin and seems inadequately flimsy to house such versatile, rugged software.

Summary: The addition of Mac syncronizing is practical, giving well-designed accessiblity to icalender, address book, and macoffice. The phone is savy, but the regulated bluetooth capabilities are extremely frustrating. If you want to have more fun with your phone, check out the Sony Ericsson W600i.

I've used, and enjoyed, the normal form-factor BBs, and at upgrade time I was torn between the 8700 and the 7100g. While the email capabililty is a must, I'd grown tired of talking into what appeared to be a calculator. Besides the bulky ergonomics, I couldn't get past the idea that my voice just couldn't reach the microphone with the older form-factor (7290, etc...).

Choice made, and I couldn't be happier. This phone is excellent for me. No coverage problems (not that that's normally a hardware problem, anyway), and no difficulties with the hardware switch from old to new.

Pros:

1) Screen is phenomenal. While the 8700 is better, this one is excellent.
2) Form-factor is perfect for people who want to treat their BBs as phones.
3) Home screen layout is preferred. Where the older models are a massive grid of oft-unused icons, the 7100's default is to put the moneymakers up front. You want memos and tasks, head to a sub menu. You want messages, phone, calendar, and browser - one click's all it takes.
4) Browser is getting better, but its still got some maturing to do.
5) The backlight is gold. 7290? Not gold. Pyrite, even. This one? Greatness. First time I turned it on I was delighted, and that was at the factory default 60% brightness. I've since turned it down to 50%, but its gold I tell you...
6) Dedicated send and end buttons. So trivial, but so perfect.

Cons:
1) Sure would love bluetooth file transfer, too.
2) Doesn't wash dishes.
3) Ringtones are the suck. Games are the suck. Perhaps its that I'm on a corporate account, but I get no love from the various ringtone and games download sites.
4) The LED, it keeps blinking. Why, LED, why?! I have all the secondary notices set to none, and you still blink, LED! Why?!?!