BlackBerry 8800 Review - Other Features
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Alfredo Padilla Published on May 22, 2007 Comment on this |
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Tethered Modem (6.5)
As with the BlackBerry 8700, you can use the 8800 as a tethered modem for your computer. Unlike the problems we ran into with the 8700, we were able to use the 8800 as both a USB and Bluetooth modem. Setup was fairly straightforward, but you may need to get your carriers dial up numbers in order to set up a connection. Having the ability to dial out with your phone is an excellent feature for business users that may need to get online quickly, too bad the device doesn't support AT&T's 3G network.
GPS (7.0)
Like all BlackBerry devices for the past few years, the 8800 includes a GPS receiver. Software that can use this is included, albeit with limitations. Telenav Maps is installed on the 8800 out of the box. This allows you to create static maps for free. With this, you can plot a route between two addresses. It can’t, however, use the GPS features or provide turn-by-turn directions unless you buy the enhanced GPS service (Telenav GPS Navigator), which costs $9.99 per month for unlimited routes or $5.99 for up to ten routes per month. This is disappointing. Google Maps provides the same functions as the Telenav Maps software for free, and other phones (such as the Nokia N95 and N73) provide some of the features of the subscription GPS service for free, but the 8800 charges you just to find out where you are.It also does a mixed job of navigation. We found it took some time to get the first GPS fix in an urban situation, and the turn by turn directions were difficult to understand. Being in a car, it is necessary to have the speaker at maximum volume; however, the distortion of the speaker at the maximum volume required made it difficult to decipher some of the instructions. On a couple of instances, it also warned us of an upcoming turn after we had already missed it and then berated us for missing the turn. Frankly, navigation is difficult enough without cell phones complaining that we have missed turns we didn’t know about. We found the GPS features of the 8800 useful but sometimes irritating. My wife rated it highly on her scale of how much the device irritated her and how much she wanted to throw it out of the window.
PTT (5.0)
The BlackBerry 8800 supports AT&T's push to talk network. Push to talk (PTT) allows you to use your phone as a walkie talkie with other PTT enabled phones. The PTT application is straightforward and easy-to-use. You can add contacts and set your availability. By default, the shortcut key on the left side of the phone opens the applications. Unfortunately, we did not have another PTT enabled phone, so we were unable to actually test the service, as such our score is based only on the software interface.| Previous Next | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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