Blackberry 8700 Cell Phone Review - Organizer

Alerts (9.0)
Alerts on the 8703e are closely tied to profiles. Profiles are fully customizable and allow you to adjust the type of alerts you will receive from different programs, and even different types of incoming email messages. You can choose to get an audio alert, a blinking LED and/or a vibration. You also get a dialogue on the screen that indicates what the alert is for, allowing you to open the item or dismiss. By default, there is no snooze option, however, you can activate the snooze in the calendar’s options and choose from several presets for the length of the snooze. You cannot choose how long you want the snooze to be once you have gotten an alert.

If you miss the alert, you will see the on screen dialogue next time you wake your phone up. You can set alerts for tasks and calendar items. You can choose from 26 preset times ranging from none to 1 week for when the alert will go off, but you cannot enter a custom time. Overall, we were very happy with the alert functionality on the Blackberry 8703e. We were especially pleased with the array of options available for how alerts will be handled.

Over the Air PIM Sync (4.0)
The Blackberry 8703e can synchronize calendars and contacts over the air with either a Blackberry server or an Exchange server. There is no out of the box support for synchronization with things like Yahoo or Google Calendar. The 8703e is an enterprise device, and it works well with enterprise server products.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (5.59)
To test how easy it is to add a contact to a phone, we time how long it takes to go from standby to adding a contact name and phone number. We repeat this for five different test contacts with diverse names and take the average. The Blackberry 8703e took an average of 17.9 seconds to add a contact. This is a good time for all phones, but it's only average for a smart phone. The Motorola Razr V3m took significantly longer at 27.9 seconds, but the Treo 700p was very similar at 17.7 seconds. Overall, we were pleased at how easy it was to add a contact to the 8703e.

Sorting/Search (6.5)
The contacts list of the Blackberry 8703e displays first name, last name, and company. You can sort your contacts by any of these and also filter your contacts by category. You can search through your contacts using first/last name or company with the list being updated automatically as you type. The 700p provides sorting and searching options very similar to other smart phones like the Treo 750, although the Treo does not offer sorting by last name. We were very pleased with the sorting and searching options on the 8703e.

Fields (7.4)
The Blackberry 8703e has 37 different fields for contacts, including space for 8 different phone numbers, and up to 3 different email addresses, and a notes field. You can also add a custom ringtone for a contact, although you cannot add a contact photo, which is understandable for a phone without a camera. We were pleased with the fields available for contacts. It stacks up well with other smart phones, although it is missing the ability to create your own custom field as found on Series 60 devices.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (2.3)
The Blackberry 8703e does not support voice tags or voice command. This is an unfortunate omission as most phones support voice tags at least, and this is a feature that can be especially useful to business users. You can assign speed dials to contacts using the 8703e, which will allow you to assign a phone number to any letter on the keyboard.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (9.01)
To test how easy it is to add a calendar item, we time how long it takes to enter a simple lunch appointment 5 times and then take the average. The Blackberry 8703e took an average of 11.1 seconds to add our test appointment. This is a very good time and is helped by the Blackberry’s simple and easy to use interface. It is much faster than most regular phones, for example, the Motorola Razr V3m took 22.6 seconds to add our test appointment. It is also faster than many other smart phones. Even the Treo 700p, which also has an easy to use interface, took longer at 12.2 seconds. Overall, we were very happy with how quick and easy it is to add calendar appointments to the 8703e.
           
Calendar Views (6.0)
The Blackberry 8703e has 4 different calendar views day, week, month, and an agenda view which lists out your appointments by date. The day view shows your working day (the times are adjustable) in hour increments with your appointments listed on the appropriate line with title and indicators for reminders and recurrence. A bracket to the left of the time shows how long the appointment is. You can scroll through the day and also scroll up to the top of the screen where you can change the day being viewed.

The weekly view also shows you your working day, but this time in a grid with all seven weekdays on display. You can change the starting date of the week, but you cannot choose between seven or five day weeks. Appointments are indicated with a block at the time and date that they are scheduled. You can scroll through the times using the scroll wheel, moving from the end of one day to the beginning of the other. When you scroll over an appointment, details are displayed at the bottom of the screen, but there are no indicators for reminders or recurrence.

The monthly view simply shows a single full month. Days when you have appointments are indicated with a small dot in the upper right hand corner of the day. No detailed information about the appointments on that day is available. If you select a day, you can choose “view appointments” from the menu and are switched to the daily view for that day.

The agenda view is a simple chronological list of appointments grouped into days. You see the starting time for the appointment, the title, and indicators or a reminder and recurrence. None of the views allow you to filter your views by category.

We would like to have seen more details available on the weekly and especially the monthly view, but otherwise, we feel that the 8703e’s views do a good job of presenting your calendar in through a clear and uncluttered interface. Compared to other calendar programs, especially those on smart phones, the 8703e calendar is a model of simplicity and efficiency.

Fields (12.0)
The Blackberry 8703e provides you with a great many fields to create your calendar appointments. All of the items we normally look for are present, including advanced items like recurrence, categories and notes. In addition, the Blackberry includes fields for privacy and time zone, both of which we considered significant enough to award points. The 8703e is a step above most other calendaring programs, even ones on smart phones like the Treo 700p.

To Do/Tasks

Adding ToDo/Task (6.33)
To measure how easy it is to add a to do or task, we time how long it takes to create a simple task. We repeat this five times and then take the average. The Blackbery 8703e took an average of 15.8 seconds to add our test task. Most regular phones do not support tasks, however one of the few that do the Sanyo M1 took only a little longer at 18 seconds on average. Another smart phone the Treo 700p took only 12.9 seconds to create a task, slightly faster than the 8703e. One thing that slows down the 8703e is that you must scroll through items on the screen in order to get to the program you want. The 700p in contrast allows you to jump to the application you want by hitting the letter that corresponds with the first letter of the program. We were pleased to see tasks support on the 8703e, but we wish it was just a little bit faster to create a new task.

ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
The tasks program on the Blackberry 8703e allows you to filter your items by category and prioritize your tasks. In the options, you can choose to sort your tasks by subject, priority, due date, and status. We were pleased with the sorting and prioritizing options on the 8703e, they compare well with other smart phones like the Cingular 8525 and are better than those found on the Treo 700p.

Fields (7.5)
The Blackberry 8703e provides a good selection of fields when creating a new task. We found all of the fields we normally look for except for the option to create a recurring task and the ability to set a start date. The 8703e also includes the ability to set your task status and set a time zone for your due date, nice extras that are not found on most phones. Overall, we were very pleased with the fields offered by the 8703e.

Notes

Adding Notes (4.5)
To test how easy it is to add a note, we time how long it takes to go from standby to creating a new note with the following text: lunch 12pm tomorrow. We do this five times and take the average time. The Blackberry 8703e took an average of 11.1 seconds to add our test note. This score was not as good as the Treo 700p, which only 8.3 seconds on average. Again, the 8703e is hurt by the fact that you need to scroll through your programs to get to the one you want. It is also hurt by the fact that the main navigation interface, the scroll wheel, is distant from the keyboard. This means you need to shift your hands in order to start typing in your note. That being said, the 8703e was not slow by any means, and compared to a regular phone like the LG Chocolate which took 33.8 seconds to enter a note it is very good.

Note Interface (7.5)
The memo application on the Blackberry 8703e allows you to filter your list of notes by category. It also allows you to search through your notes by title, by entering text into the bar at the top of the interface. As with all other programs, on the 8703e you can access all of the important functions you need by pressing in on the scroll wheel and bringing up the context menu. The interface is very simple and easy to use, we were pleased to see the search function, which is missing from other smart phones (particularly  those based on Windows Mobile Professional). 

Note Formatting (0.0)
The Blackberry 8703e does not offer you any options to format the text in your notes. You can change the font and text size in the phone’s settings, but this applies to all the text on your phone, not just that in the memo program. There is no option to add bold, italics, underline, or change text color. You also cannot create hand drawn notes, like on devices with a touch screen interface like the Cingular 8525.

Voice Memo (0.0)
The Blackberry 8703e does not support voice memos. This is an unfortunate omission for a business oriented phone as voice memos can be quick and easy reminders when you are on the go. Most cell phones support voice memos including phones like the Sanyo M1 and smart phones like the Treo 700p.

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