I've had my 8703e for about a year now, and I've been fairly happy with it. The screen and extra memory were a big improvement over the 7250, so I didn't even question that upgrade. From what I'd read about it I wasn't sure if the 8830 was worth the upgrade. I had an evaluation unit a few weeks ago and it only took a day before I decided that I wanted to upgrade. I'm admittedly a bit of a gadget whore, but the 8830 is much slimmer, the speakerphone seems to be almost twice as loud, and the modified front panel buttons and trackball are great once you get used to them.
It's not perfect though - there are frequent hourglasses, right before the phone rings for instance. The trackball wobbles a bit and even with the sensitivity turned way up it still isn't as smooth as I'd like. The blue backlit keyboard is horrible, and almost worse than having no backlight at all. Everyone's talked about it, but there's only one word that can describe the keyboard: mushy. There is no space between the keys, and they are individual buttons now, not the single sheet of molded plastic seen in earlier devices.
OS 4.2, the new media player, file transfer for JiveTalk, and MicroSD storage will tide me over until I can get my hands on Verizon's Curve - the 8330 (assuming it's ever released). I thought I'd heard that the SIM card was built-in, but my 8830 came with one that goes into the MicroSD slot. No mp3s when traveling abroad I guess.
I'm headed to Peru tomorrow for a week, and my camera left last Friday, but I'll take a few pictures of it while I'm down there. It may be a World Phone, but there isn't any data coverage in Peru yet, only the marvelous $1.29/min phone service.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:17 am
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49291194,00.htm
Apparently the brits are gadget whores too, with 1 of 3 responding they would not give up the use of a mobile phone for 1m pounds.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:48 am
What was RIM thinking when they made the VZW 8830 keyboard backlight dim blue? A great device terribly flawed by some dim idiot in the design department who couldn't grasp that we like to be able to SEE our keys! VZW should have known better also.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:11 am
The combination of the colors and the spongy keys is pretty shameful. There are black replacement keyboards available, but the feel still isn't improved.