Disruptive Telephony

Today I received my new Blackberry "8830 World Edition" and I thought I'd record some initial reactions.  As past readers know, I live in Vermont where we don't really have decent GSM coverage (and can't get the iPhone) and are, in fact, likely to have even less GSM coverage now that Verizon will be purchasing GSM provider Unicel and, per Engadget and others, will be converting all GSM users over to CDMA.

This is obviously not a good thing for those of us who need to travel outside of North America. 

My previous CDMA-only Blackberry 7290 became essentially an extremely expensive paperweight the moment I left these shores.  Because I do travel, I have had a "backup phone" that is a Cingular GSM phone (with a New York number) that I used when outside of NA.  However, it's rather a pain because: 1) it's a different phone interface than I'm used to; 2) it's a different number than people know and I have to get into forwarding; 3) it doesn't always seem to work abroad; 4) Mitel has been paying two separate monthly fees for me;  and perhaps most importantly to me 5) I don't get my email on the phone!

A few weeks ago I saw that Verizon would be offering this new "8830" Blackberry that claimed to work anywhere in the world and so I dropped a note to our Corporate IT group to see if this would solve my two phone issue and let me get my email wherever I travel. They were looking into it and, in light of my recent brilliant move, decided to go ahead with it.  It arrived today and after the brief activation process with both Verizon and Mitel's Blackberry Enterprise Server, I was up and running again.

Some initial thoughts (note that I am comparing the 8830 to an older 7290 - if you have a newer Blackberry, you may already have some of these changes):

• The 8830 is a nice, sleek, sharp-looking unit. Smaller and thinner than the 7290 but seems to have a higher screen resolution and brighter screen.
• The thumbwheel on the side is gone and instead there's a trackball in the center.  This will undoubtedly take some getting used to after so much use of the thumbwheel.  You push in the trackball just as you did the thumbwheel to execute a command or make a choice.  As a bonus, the trackball lights up, too.
• The keys are closer together, but yet they have ridges/indentations on them that seem, so far, to make it as easy to "thumb-type" on them as the previous keys.  (Hmmm... in fact, because the keys are closer together will there be less thumb fatigue?)
• Two more keys were added in the keypad.  The "0" key is now on its own key to the left of the spacebar and there is a separate Shift key.  On the right-side of the spacebar there is a "Sym" key that brings up various symbols.
• Next to the trackball, on the outside, Rim added the green and red "call" and "end" buttons that are common on most all cell phones these days. This is different from the 7290 where this was all done with the thumbwheel.
• Immediately adjacent to the trackball are two keys: "Menu" on the left and "Esc" on the right.  The Esc keys does what the button on the side of the 7290 below the thumbwheel did, which is that it cancels whatever you are doing and takes you "back" to a previous screen.  The "Menu" button pops up whatever menu is appropriate in the context. 
• An interesting aspect of this change is that you have more granularity of control than you did with the 7290 where the thumbwheel and button were overloaded with multiple functions.  For instance, when you are in an app, the "Esc" button will now bring you back to the previous screen but leave you still with the app open (previously it would usually exit the app).  Exiting the app is done through either the red "end" button or through the Menu button and choosing Close.
• On the left side of the 8830 there is a "Convenience Button" that you can set to launch some app.  By default it is set to the "Voice Dial" app but, for instance, I changed mine to "Messages" so that all I have to do is push that button to get to my email.  Easy to configure and change in the "Options" application
• The leather holster with the magnetic closure is a much nicer way to hold it than the plastic bracket from which the 7290 often slipped out.
• The "other apps" that I had on my previous BB like Gmail, Google Maps and iSkoot all installed without any hitches.
• Installing the GSM SIM card that was labeled "Verizon" and "Vodafone" was a painless and simple exercise - but let's hope you never need to get it back out!  Just to see the card again I tried to remove it and found it basically impossible to do.  I'm not sure that I'd really ever want to do so, but if I did, I think I'd need needle-nose pliers to do so!
• The phone will work on CDMA or on GSM on either 900 or 1800 Mhz.  The default setting is for the phone to automagically detect whether CDMA or GSM is stronger and switch if necessary.  I'll be interested to monitor this when I next drive up to Ottawa and go through areas of Ontario with extremely limited CDMA coverage.  You can also force the phone to stick with either CDMA or GSM.
• Underneath the back cover, there is also a slot for a "mini-SD" card so that apparently you can store music or videos on that extra memory (At first I thought it was for the SIM card but it was too small.)
• Audio quality was fine in the few calls I've made with it so far.
• It has a speakerphone!

Those are some initial thoughts - I'm sure as I use it more I'll have some different opinions.  It will be interesting to see how I rapidly I adjust to the nuanced changes in button functions.  I've noticed myself pushing the wrong buttons some times already.

Now... I just need a trip into GSM-land to try out the transition...  (stay tuned)