RIM BlackBerry 8700c (AT&T)

Reviewed by

Bonnie Cha

on 12/06/2005

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RIM throws in other useful applications for the mobile professional. There's a calendar, a task list, a memo pad, and a calculator. A couple of demo apps that we enjoyed and may be worth the download were Quotestream Wireless and AskMeNow. Quotestream allows you to receive wireless-streaming stock quotes right on your 8700c, while AskMeNow gives you quick access to weather, sports scores, flight information, and more. It also has an Ask Jeeves-type functionality called Ask Anything, where you can input a question, and you'll receive the answer in your in-box. We asked a sports-related question, "Where did Peyton Manning go to school?" and lo and behold, within five minutes, we had our answer along with some other useful information--pretty neat! One final noteworthy addition is the ability to toggle between applications. By holding down Alt, then pressing the Esc key, you can quickly access your messages, your home screen, your phone, your messenger, your Web browser, or your WorkSpace CRM, rather than tediously backing out of several layers of apps.

We definitely hear you now: The BlackBerry 8700c's speakerphone is plenty loud.

Moving to the phone aspect of the BlackBerry 8700c, the mobile's address book is limited only by the available memory (an additional 250 names can be stored on the SIM card), and the device comes with 64MB of flash memory and 16MB of SDRAM, which is a nice bump up from the BlackBerry 7290. For each contact entry, you can store up to eight numbers, an e-mail and a Web address, home and work addresses, job titles, and notes. You get 35 polyphonic ring tones, and there's support for MP3 ring tones, as well as a vibrate mode, conference calling, call forwarding, speed dialing, and smart dialing. Finally, there's Bluetooth support for wireless headsets and car kits, but unfortunately, wireless data transfers and syncing are out of the question.

As a businesscentric device, the BlackBerry 8700c doesn't give you too many entertainment or multimedia functions. The BlackBerry 8700c doesn't have an audio or video player, but it does come with three games: BrickBreaker, Texas Hold'em King 2, and Bass Assassin. Customization is limited to a handful of themes, but more options--ring tones, wallpaper, games, and so on--are available through Cingular.

Using Cingular's network, we tested the quad-band (GSM/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) RIM BlackBerry 8700c in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and call quality was generally good. We had no problems hearing our callers, although they sounded slightly hollow at times, but it didn't prevent us from holding a conversation. On the flip side, callers said we sounded clear, but they could tell we were on a cell phone. Speakerphone quality was even better. Callers said they couldn't even tell we were on speakerphone, and volume was plenty loud. In fact, we were a little embarrassed when we activated the speakerphone in a public place because our caller's voice boomed throughout the room.

Wireless functions on the RIM BlackBerry 8700c were admirable. We had no problems pairing the device with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset, and we were talking, hands free, within minutes. Call quality did suffer slightly, however. Surfing the Web on the 8700c was relatively painless, and the EDGE support helped with faster upload times, but we did encounter some delays and formatting issues with graphics-intensive sites such as CNET.com.

The RIM BlackBerry 8700c is rated for 4 hours of talk time and up to 16 days of standby time. In our tests, we managed to get 5 hours, 40 minutes of talk time, while the standby time fell short at 7 days.