Blackberry 8700 Cell Phone Review - Messaging
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 16, 2007 Comment on this |
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Supported Email Services (6.5)
The Blackberry 8703e’s raizon d’etre is email, and in this, it doesn’t disappoint. Unlike other business devices, the 8703e does not allow you to set up an email account directly from the messaging program, rather you use Sprint’s web based email configuration tool, which can be accessed by a shortcut from the 8703e’s main menu. Here you can configure up to 10 different accounts, including any POP3 or IMAP4 based account that you may have. We did not have a lot of success getting popular email systems to work on the 8703e. We were able to access our test AOL account, but it failed to access our test Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail accounts. Of course, the Blackberry 8703e is meant to be used for corporate email, but we were still disappointed that it didn’t interface better with popular individual email services. You can also create your own personal Blackberry email address using the same configuration tool.
Push Email (4.0)
The Blackberry 8703e supports push email via… the Blackberry push email service. You can configure the 8703e to work with a BIS server (think personal service that you set up via Sprint) or a BES server (this is an enterprise server that your company will manage). You will need to purchase a Blackberry plan from Sprint in order to activate your push email, starting at $39.99 per month. The 8703e does not support any other push email services.
Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The Blackberry 8703e allows you to configure up to 10 different email accounts, including one account delivered via a Blackberry server. This is a good number of accounts for any phone, and it is comparable to the capabilities of smart phones like the Motorola Q or the Treo 700p.
HTML and Attachments (4.0)
The Blackberry 8703e does not support HTML email, rendering everything in plain text. There is support for attachments; however, viewing of most formats is dependent on server side support. Read that to mean, you better check with your service provider or corporate IT team to find out if they provide the necessary support. In our tests, we were able to view Zip, Excel, Powerpoint, and PDF files, but we were unable to view word files. We were disappointed that there was no support for html mail, although it is to be expected from a no nonsense device like the 8703e. We were also disappointed to see the strings tied to attachment viewing, many smart phones like the Cingular 8525 or the Treo 700p allow you to view attachments right on the device without any worry about your server.
Email Customization (0.0)
The Blackberry 8703e’s messaging program is extremely basic and has few options for the user. You cannot adjust the font, size, colors, or the way email is viewed. You do have some options to change how email is organized by displaying or not displaying certain types of messages, for example, sent ones. You can add signatures to outgoing emails. Given the Blackberry’s email specialization, we were disappointed by the inability to customize your experience.
Time to a New Email Message (6.6)
To test how easy it is to get a new email going, we time how long it takes to go from standby to a new message dialogue. We repeat this test 5 times and then take the average. The Blackberry 8703e took an average of 3.04 seconds to get to a new message dialogue. This is an excellent score for a handset. It is significantly faster than the Motorola Q, another messaging oriented handset, but it doesn’t match up to the Treo 700p, which took only 2.7 seconds on average to open a new message dialogue. Overall, we were very pleased with the 8703e’s performance.
Email Usability (11.0)
Like many things on the 8703e, using the email program is very simple and straightforward. Moving between emails is a simple scroll up/down affair, as is moving amongst fields in a new message dialogue. The Cc field is shown by default, and you can add a Bcc filed from the context menu, which is a button press away. Folder access is a little more complicated, requiring you to access a separate dialogue. Selecting items is also a little annoying, as it requires two button clicks rather than one. Overall, we found the email program on the Blackberry 8703e to be very usable. The simplicity of the interface works to its benefit for the most part and only occasionally creates complications. The 8703e compares very well to other enterprise focused handsets like the Cingular 8525 or the Treo 700p.
Supported IM Services (0.0)
The Blackberry 8703e only supports Blackberry’s own instant messaging service out of the box. We don't award points for even this limited support because each IM you send or receive is treated as a text message. You may be able to address this issue with third party software, you can find out more here (http://www.blackberry.com/products/blackberry/im/index.shtml).
MMS Support (0.0)
Given its lack of a camera its no surprise that the Blackberry 8703e does not support MMS messaging.
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
To test smiley face interpretation, we send 4 standard smiley faces to the device and see if it converts them to graphic images. The Blackberry 8703e does not interpret smiley faces, leaving them in plain text. It also does not support insertion of smiley faces. This is not surprising given that the 8703e is a business device. However, many smart phones do include these features, for example the Treo 700p.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (6.0)
The Blackberry 8703e does not support MMS messaging, however, it does support SMS messaging. SMS is integrated into the messaging client. You can easily scroll through your messages and fields in messages using the scroll wheel. There is no threaded message view and switching between folders is done through the menu structure. You can send SMS messages to groups. Overall, we found SMS on the 8703e to be very basic with few advanced features. This does however make it easy to use.
Time to New SMS Message (3.5)
To test how easy it is to create a new SMS message, we time how long it takes to go from standby to a new SMS dialogue. We repeat this test five times and take the average. The Blackberry 8703e took only 2.88 seconds on average to get to a new SMS message dialogue. SMS messaging is integrated with email so the interface is just as easy to access and use. As befits a messaging device, the 8703e did very well compared to other handsets. It was significantly faster than the Motorola Q, which took an average of 5.1 seconds to access a new SMS message dialogue. The Treo 700p however was quicker than the Blackberry 8703e at 1.4 seconds on average. We were pleased with the 8703e’s performance in this area.
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