BlackBerry 8800

Everyone who’s anyone has heard of, seen or wants a Blackberry. So what’s the big deal? Film stars use them in movies, musicians use them in video’s, rich business men look important on them abroad, but will it help using one in South Africa?

I am not so sure to be honest. I used the Blackberry 8800 for a fair amount of time and made use of every possible feature of which there are plenty. But I can only conclude that there is just too much to do and no resources in SA to use them or want to.

Email

The email option is prevalant and what everyone raves about. Firstly what an absolute mission to set that up. Calling service provided, their sisters aunts uncles best friend and then the president to gain access. Too much. Why would you want to do this when everyone has a gmail account and is directing their pop3 emails to it? You can simply use any old phones built in browser, pop on and check you mail. Easy. However it is a cool nice-to-have if you have the inclination to set it up.

Along the lines of email is the Blackberry messenger. The messenger looks like some sort of Instand Messenger (IM) service for Blackberry users. Thing is I only know one person in my contact list with a Blackberry. We tried hard but failed dismally to connect, add, chat, message or anything else through the Blackberry messenger vibe. Nothing, nada, wasteful in SA or for anyone without a Blackberry.

The looks

Seeing the 8800 can be daunting and interesting and somewhat confusing all at once. It looks stunning and has immediate astheatic appeal. However that quickly wears off when you get down to the nitty-gritty features. For example, the calendar is terribly boring and designed in a Windows 3.11 type of design. Terrible. My Samsung D900 easily puts this calendar to shame. The homepage (start screen) for the phone looks great and flows well, however there are a few too many options available at one time. I suppose the intention here is to make it more accessible, that doesn’t work at all.

Rollerball/mouse/thingy

Scrolling through the phone is only really possible via the rollerball/mouse/thingy in the middle of the phone. A fresh and clean addition to a cellphone with the 8800’s capabilities. The one place where the rollerball/mouse/thingy excels is in the browser. The rollerball becomes an actual mouse which I really enjoy. You can scroll through the in-built browser as you would scroll through any browser on your pc or laptop. Great work on that front.

Bluetooth

Then you have the very necessary Bluetooth on almost every phone these days. I have a problem with bluetooth in that it doesn’t work very well very often. My carkit (a motorola) struggles to pick up my D900 and it kills me everymorning. It often drops calls and battles to pick up signal. The 8800 did a sterling job, easily picked up my Mac as well as the handsfree kit in my car. Just too simple, clear and effective for me to complain at all.

SMS/Email typing

I say “typing” because the 8800 features a very predominant and well designed qwerty keyboard. One quick sidethought: You cannot, with any easy, dial and 0800 WORD number, at all, every with a qwerty keyboard. You need to have memorised the entire platform of a regular cellphone keypad to complete this sort of function.

Back on to the 8800 typing. It’s tough, I wont lie. I love using a qwerty keyboard on a pc/laptop but on a cellphone it is a bit of a challenge. Over time if you used it often enough I can almost promise you that typing will become faster than a regular keypad, but getting started is challenging. Writing emails is great using the full functionality of a keyboard on a phone. Yet typing an SMS with one hand is almost ruled out with a qwerty keyboard. This irritates me beyond belied. I can multitask and like to do so. With two hands firmly attached to the 8800 I can do nothing but type.

Battery Life

I charged the 8800 on a Wednesday and on the Saturday the thing was still going strong. That’s 2 full days of work usage and no battery problems. If you are looking for battery performance, this is the phone for you.

More than this it is difficult to say. The basics are there, the phone is usable but not ideal for almost anything. It lacks a camera (I know it’s a phone but I like a camera too) and makes simple things complicated and complicated things less complicated.

I’ve seen pseudo-wannabe-gagillionaires flash Blackberry’s around and basically that’s what this phone is; an accesory. If I could afford one I’d use it as my office phone to make others think they are jealous. If I was a smart man I would probably not buy one.

Retails at: ± R4999 depending on where you get it from.
Visit: http://www.blackberry8800series.com/
Extra reading: Vodacom’s deals.

Rate this review:

(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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Filed Under Blackberry, Featured Reviews, Mobile, Smartphones