N.B.: Take my review with a grain of salt, because the handset I tried turned out to be defective, so this may have adversely affected some of the features that seemed to work right. I talked to Blackberry support, Cingular support, and an associate at a local Cingular retailer, and they all agreed the unit I received must have been defective because it lacked a Browser application for the Web and couldn’t be reprovisioned with one, even with a new SIM card. There was some other anomolous behaviour too, like often displaying “Data connection refused” instead of the network name. I sent it back, but since I liked my Nokia 6800 so much better, despite its tiny, low-colour screen and having one foot in the grave, I’m not going to try a new Blackberry. At least not until there’s a new version that addresses some of the issues I had with it.
Bottom line? If you do a lot of text messaging and email, get a Nokia 6800-series. The 6800′s still available with a couple of carriers; the 6820 adds Bluetooth, a camera, and some other features; and the long overdue 6822 will have a better screen, a better camera, and some other enhancements. The Blackberry 7100g looks cool and certainly has some great features, but it’s just not the mobile professional’s phone the Nokia 6800-series is.
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