RIM BlackBerry 8830 Cell Phone

I have been a Blackberry user since the the 7230 and moved my way to a 8130 Curve and most recently an 8830 (in Fall of 2008) out of necessity from my provider - Verizon wireless. 

The move from AT&T to Verizon was required for coverage reasons as I travel between US and Canada and Verizon has the better plan for flat rate, no roaming in Canada. In order to provide that service, I had to move to an 8830 world phone with Global Data Plan. 

The 8830 is a large smartphone which has a GSM sim card in it when your outside the Verizon CDMA network. It has an SD slot for removable storage which can store files and media. The controls on the 8830 are simiiar to other newer blackberrys with a trackball/click down cursor, and side buttons for volume control. The mute button is very easy activate - its a button on the top right, which makes it a breeze to have flipped on and off while on conference calls. The speakerphone is turned on and off via a single button which is also very convenient with very decent volume and clarity. The speaker is located at the top of the phone, I find that placing the phone in my car cup holder top down, provides a free amplifier as sound bounces out of the cup holder and seems louder. I have also paired this phone with my car's stereo (Kenwood) without any issues, it supports auto phonebook download which passes the phone book data into my car stereo. 

I have paired my 8830 with a Jawbone II bluetooth ear piece which was very easy to do. The size of the phone and the amount of time I spend on it (average 2500 mins a month) the ear pierce is necessary - holding the brick to your ear gets tiring after awhile. Adjusting ear piece volume is the same volume buttons on the right side of the blackberry that adjust speaker volume. So after a few days, you can operate the mute, volume control and speed dialing without looking at your phone which is safe and convenient. 

The battery life on the 8830 is on par with other blackberry's I've used. Of course it varies on what your doing with the device during the course of a day. My talk time is about 4 to 5 hrs which includes constant email and facebook use. The charger is a standard mini-USB interface which is very convenient in the event you have a stash of older blackberry chargers or a Razr Motorola charger - repalcement chargers are cheap as well because its a very common interface. 

Some issues I have experienced with this particular model compared to other blackberrys is type of memory leak or blackberry OS freeze up. I need to do a hard reboot once a week which requires turning it off and removing the battery to get it working properly again. The hour glass starts to spin and then the phone is pretty much unresponsive or at the least overwhelmed and slow. Talking to other 8830 and other Blackberry users, this seems to be not be unique and might be an Operating System issue. Once you get used to the "reboot" process, you can get by. 

Fit and finish is decent - its hard to judge how good it is as each user will punish their devices differently. I carry it in a hip holster that came with the phone which is holding up well. The full qwerty keyboard is very chewy and the buttons are flush with each other which impedes my typing speed. The BB Curve 8130 which is smaller in size, but had spaces between each key provided a more tactile feel which I preferred over this keyboard. 
There is no camera on this phone and no wifi support. The newer blackberry world phones have this functionality so I suspect this is a non issue for anyone looking at a new phone. i didnt realize how much I would miss my camera - I do a lot. A few reasons - facebook or any other interactive site lets you upload photos which I could do on my 8130 and now I cannot. The camera is something thats nice to have even if you don't use it, or worse if you need it and don't have it. 

International use of the 8830 World phone is of course dependent on your service provider so I can only give you an Verizon experience. I travelled to India recently where the phone automatically jumped to the GSM card and found Vodaphone networks in Europe and all over India. I was very impressed with the network coverage and the strength of signal the phone was able to sustain. I never had issues getting on Facebook, email and the internet in all parts of India and London. 

Overall, the 8830 is a tool that I need for my job as its connected to our Exchange server. So living without a blackberry is not a viable option. Moving from an 8130 to the 8830 was a requirement for me, not a desire. So losing a camera, getting a chewy keyboard and increase size and weight were pretty much in the wrong direction for me. Granted there are newer blackberrys on the market that solve these issues but if you need a GSM/CDMA phone and you don't care about a camera then this will work and meet your needs.  It's built well, has easy buttons for the things we need the most - volume, mute, and speakerphone. It's a good phone, a good email device but not a great one.