I want to start a discussion with other Blackberry users.

I have a 7230 Blackberry, the new triband GSM colour version. T-Mobile USA is my carrier.

The web browsing is really surprising: I have done browsing on other wireless PDAs and phones and never found it worthwhile, but on this device the browsing is actually useful.

I can even look at FT posts at practical speeds. The small screen quickly gets tiring but it is quite useful when people email me links.

Push wireless email is making my life a lot better also. And I can IM all the time from this device so that PC users get instant messages and that is very useful.

The Blackberry Wireless Client, the web client, handles attachments and long emails extremely well also. I have only recently got the BB and don't have a lot of travel experience with it.

What are your BB experiences?

The Triband for me is useless for now as T-Mobile US still has 900MHz roaming in the UK on Vodafone and O2... So I'm not forced to get one.

I have a 6210; which is quite good.

You can actually use the blackberry browser to access information on intranets (if so setup) as data is passed to the blackberry server in your company...

My only big issue is the time they take to switch from the 900/1800 band pairs and 1900Mhz... even with the latest software it still requires a reboot when changing from a 900 (or 1800) region to 1900...

If I can get our IT folks to swap out my 6210 for a tri band (color or b&w) I would take it.

BTW: Battery life on the color version seemed fairly bad compared to the B&W. Do you find web browsing is good enough on GPRS to really require color for the amount of time you use it... Or do you just end up keeping your blackberry pretty much charged all the time?

Battery life bad? That was a big concern of mine.

Luckilly, I find it excellent. It doesn't seem significantly worse than monochrome, and the resolution is very good for this type of device.

I do find web browsing very useful, mainly because people email me a lot of links quite often, and the GPRS is fast enough, and the browser good enough, so that I can actually look up the links -- it is practical.

Our T-Mobile rep (per our IT folks) is rolling units of the color and mono tri-bands in another 2 weeks or so. You seem to have gotten yours quicker than anyone else was told here on the west coast.

RIM has a OEM quad band radio unit done to add 850MHz (for forthcoming rural coverage in the US), however no firm date on when they will incorporate this into any devices.

How is your TMO coverage? Have you roamed internationally? How is it in the USA?

On T-Mobile... US coverage has been OK... anywhere I get T-Mobile/Cingular coverage I've had Blackberry access... Cities I've used it in the US recent with no issues... Major areas in No. and So. Calif, Chicagoland area and suburbs, New York metro area, Austin, Dallas...

For International, used it in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton (uses Fido... for now)

In Europe, UK, France, Germany, Finland and Spain. NO coverage in Ireland due to no GPRS agreement yet. But we have UK issued O2 units that work fine in Ireland that we swap out and have out IT folks reconfig that device PIN to our mailbox.

Also worked in Hong Kong last time I was through.

What I'm waiting for t-mobile to add GPRS roaming to is: Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico and Taiwan... Since most network operators are looking at GPRS roaming as an extra revenue stream I'm sure we will get this at some point.

T-Mobile US's GPRS roaming list:
http://www.t-mobile.com/internationa...geInternet.asp

O2 UK's GPRS roaming list
http://www.o2.co.uk/business/product...0,,600,00.html

Vodafone UK's GPRS roaming list:
http://www.vodafone.co.uk/cgi-bin/CO...ng+GPRS+abroad

ATTWS:
http://www.attws.com/include/interna...ry_popup.jhtml
(No specific GPRS roaming list... you need to look at each country for a "data" feature on each network.

Thank you, very helpful!

Yesterday I traveled through most of Virginia on the I-66 and the I-81, from Washington to near Front Royal past Harrisonburg to Staunton. We stopped several times and exited the freeway for food and things we had to do.

I was amazed that TMO coverage while not 100% or equal to Verizon, was awfully good. I could use my BB most of the trip even off the freeway in rural areas. I am sure that a few miles away from the freeway, unless you are in Harrisonburg or Staunton, you will lose signal, but still, it was impressive.

Richard... Seems like I got a 7230 coming next week.

Any reservations on battery life with the 7230, etc over older blackberries or do you still think this is a better device overall.

A reviewer in the Washington Post recently said he got 5 days from his 7230 battery - which is very good, IMO.

No, you won't believe the battery life. I can talk on the phone and have 100 messages and the battery is still at 85% or 90%. It charges through a USB cable and takes about 15 to 30 minutes per day max to maintain fully charged.

The screen is smaller, but the overall unit is lighter and the screen is so good, IMHO, that this isn't an issue in terms of readability.

Some have complained about the backlight. Basically, the brighter the light, the better you can see. I can read this screen in any typical roomlight easily, and unlike other devices, I can easily read it in the bright sunlight. Where the backlight is valuable is in a dark room. It is not designed to assist in anything but darkness. I find this a reasonable compromise given the strengths of battery life and screen legibility.

Thanks... We all got 6230's as a temporary measure yesterday due to the problems with memory leaks on the 8MB units. My 7230 shows up next week... will post my "comments"

BTW: The 6230 is a MUCH faster and responsive device. The app processor change is noticable. The negative on the 6230 is the screen is so small. resolution is OK, not great. Can't wait to get a 7230

The 7230 is quite fast. I have about 1300 names in my phone book and everything is lightning fast. I am so impressed with everything about this unit, in case you can't tell. There is also a BB portal run by RIM that has a cool Asteroids clone called Meteor. Runs very quickly and messages come in while you are playing thanks to the multi threaded OS.

The web browser on the 6230 needs help! Surfing the web in monochrome is nasty. Even more now I'm waiting for the 7230. Btw: surfing performance is good if you don't load all images.

(dupe)... sorry Blackberry's browser resubmits the page on a "back" instead of pulling it from the cache :rolleys:

[This message has been edited by NickP 1K (edited 08-22-2003).]