New toy: BlackBerry 7130
by Volker Weber
The courier brought a new toy today: a Blackberry 7130. Like former 71xx models it tries to look more like an ordinary phone. It uses a system called SureType, which is sort of a T9 for buttons which have three (1ER) instead of four (1ABC) characters. I will see how well this works. So far it is the best looking Blackberry I have had, with the same powerful CPU as the 8700 and a smaller but even brighter screen.
Update: After writing a few mails with SureType, I have mixed results. It works much better than you would expect, but on the other hand you constantly worry whether it writes what you are typing. There is one serious problem for me: You have to tell SureType which language you are using. But I am actually using two, and I don't want to switch the preferences time and again.
The 7130 competes head to head with the 8700. You get a smaller screen (240x260 vs 320x240) and the smaller keyboard, but the rest is basically the same. The narrower screen makes it a bit harder to read the message list, but the message display itself is good. Placing phone calls from the keypad feels more natural than on the larger 8700 where the numeric keys are much smaller and off-center.
First impression: the 7130 is the better phone, the 8700 is the better message machine. I like them both. The 8707 flies a bit higher since it has a UMTS/3G radio.
Comments
Yeah. Just saw an 8707 - the 3g version - the other day, and am now putting pressure on BlackBerry to send me one - upgrading from the 7110v...
---* Bill
Got a 7130 on my desk and an 8707 in the post...an interesting time for Blackberry here.
The post in the UK is no longer what it used to be. You placed your order a month ago.
Vowe,
You're a consultant...in big business we make an order to procure a device and it has to get though n levels of red-tape before it becomes an external order with our comms supplier.
The final order was made today, it'll be here on Monday...hopefully.
Four weeks of red tape for a sub-500-GBP item? Wow.
Much more than four weeks...remember this was an amended order!
I once bought my own ¢25 CD burner after 3months of waiting for sign-off! I also wish I was joking.
