T-Mobile BlackBerry 8820
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Introduction
I never really got into the BlackBerry devices. I remember seeing them at tradeshows and thinking how confusing the interface was. Today I've finally given a full attempt at learning to use a BlackBerry and trying to decipher what's so good about it. This review follows my experience with the T-Mobile version of the current top-of-the-line BlackBerry 8820. We'll go over some special things about the T-Mobile version of this device as well as my general experience with the BlackBerry side of life from the perspective of a Windows Mobile user.
Review Date: May 21, 2008
Picture Highlights
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| The Device! | The default home screen for the T-Mobile BlackBerry 8820 shows the MyFaves interface in the middle and there are 5 icons at the bottom. Moving the trackball will spin the MyFaves faces, and if you roll it downwards the selection focus will move to the unlabelled program icons. |
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| You can change the home screen design to a variety of other options using the Options>Theme control panel. The "Dimension Icon" theme shows the program icons right up front in only three rows. They're still difficult to understand, some of them look exactly like others, and the background image is very distracting. | T-Mobile's "MyFaves" customization is nicely done. It's very similar to the MyFaves software on other operating systems, and this is a good thing. The only problem was when I got to the "Edit MyFaves Contact" screen, there was no indication of what to do next. It turns out you have to press the BlackBerry menu key to bring up the invisible menu and then choose the "Save" option. |
Overall Impression
I love the UMA support on the BlackBerry 8820. I also love the build quality and tactile keyboard. The automatic profile changing when slid into the holster feature is cool, but I haven't used a belt clip for a phone since my big iPAQ with the GSM GPRS Expansion pack, so it isn't of much use to me. On the downside, I really don't like the user interface. Even after learning how to use it, it's still annoying. That and the fact that you have to pay extra for Blackberry Server hosting or install your own server software in order to get decent email syncing is probably going to keep me away from using a BlackBerry exclusively.
In summary, there are two things about the BlackBerry user interface and hardware design that don't make sense. First, it's got an incremental movement type user interface, but it's got non-incremental continuous-movement navigation hardware (the trackball). Second, it's got an icon-based user interface, but a text-based input device (QWERTY keyboard). It would make much more sense if the user interface was navigable using the letters on the keyboard (as is the case in Windows Mobile).
Rating
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