BlackBerry 8800 Review - Making/Receiving Calls
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Alfredo Padilla Published on May 22, 2007 Comment on this |
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Dialing Speed (4.6)
To see how fast you can dial, we time how long it takes to dialing five sample numbers. Dialing from the home screen is simple, you just start hitting the keys with numbers above the letters, and it switches over the phone screen. The fact that these keys are part of the QWERTY keyboard means that there's a certain element of hunt and peck to this. We timed it at an average of 4.35 seconds. That's a little slower than some phones with larger dedicated keypads, but it's more than acceptable.
Talk and End Buttons (8.0)
Located below the screen, the talk and end buttons are fairly large and easy to find. They are, however, a little bit smaller than the 8700, and we did find ourselves pressing the menu and end buttons by accident sometimes.
Call Management (4.0)
The BlackBerry 8800 puts a list of incoming and outgoing call numbers on the first page of the phone application, making it easy to find a number that you've called or received a call from. We weren't able to determine how many numbers this list can hold. The six most recent are shown on the screen, and older numbers can be reached by scrolling down. Startup to Call (15.38)
In this test, we measure how long the phone takes to go from being turned off to hitting enter on a phone call. Typically, we don't measure the time to call, as that depends on the network. The 8800 was very quick to start up. It took us just 6.5 seconds from the phone turned off to hitting dial after entering a number. That's significantly faster than the 8700 which took 10.8 seconds. This is also much, much faster than smart phones based on the Windows Mobile OS, such as the T-Mobile Dash that took a lengthy 76 seconds.
Ring Volume (8.4)
Using a professional SPL meter, we measured the loudest of the default ring tones on the 8800 at 84 Decibels. This is loud enough to wake even the soundest sleeper. It is slightly louder than the heftier BlackBerry 8700, so it's good to see that the thinner profile has not affected the ringer volume.
Ringtone Customizability (6.0)
In line with the new media-centric focus of the 8800, the new handset supports polyphonic ring tones. It can use any MP3 file as a ringtone, so you can have your choice of any number of bleeps, bloops, or music as a ringtone. To use an MP3 file as a ringtone, simply drop it into the Ringtones folder on the device.
Non Audio Alerts (7.0)
The 8800 has a vibrate profile, but the vibration is pretty weak. You can hardly feel it even if the device is sitting in your hand. This is partly a consequence of the thin profile; it doesn't leave much room for the rotating weight that the phone uses for the vibration alert. The LED on the front of the device also flashes when a call is coming in; but, you won't notice this unless you're staring right at it since the LED is not very bright.
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