Cellphone Reviews Blog

Samsung Memoir 8 MP Camera Phone Black T Mobile

Is the Samsung Memoir a high-megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera or a full-featured 3G-enabled smartphone? It’s both, thanks to the 8-megapixel lens mounted on the back of the device and support for T-Mobile’s HSDPA 3G network (in select markets), which provides fast web downloads and multimedia messaging. It will also keep you connected to your closest friends and family members with T-Mobiles myFaves.

The camera is outfitted with a Xenon flash, 16x digital zoom, video capture capabilities, and six shooting modes as well as easy access to your favorite online photo sharing sites. This touchscreen-enabled phone has a large, brightly colorful 3-inch screen, and it includes Samsung’s intuitive and easily customizable TouchWiz user interface. It also offers built-in Assisted GPS (a-GPS) navigation, which allows you to utilize location-based services including turn-by-turn directions. Other features include Bluetooth for handsfree devices and stereo music streaming, MicroSD memory expansion (up to 16 GB), digital audio player and FM radio, access to personal email and instant messaging, and up to 5.5 hours of talk time.

The Samsung Memoir’s 8-megapixel camera makes it easy to capture photos and videos on the go without sacrificing the quality of your point-and-shoot camera (see larger version).

T-Mobile Service
The Samsung Memoir operates on GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks and is compatible with T-Mobile’s UMTS/HSDPA 3G network, which operates on the 1700/2100 MHz AWS spectrum. This phone is designed to automatically connect to the best available network (3G or GSM/GPRS/EDGE) to provide faster data speeds when accessing the Web or downloading content from the T-Mobile Web2go content portal. T-Mobile is currently rolling out its 3G network, and it expects by year’s end that its high-speed data network will be available in those cities where a majority of its subscribers currently use data services.

In areas where the 3G network is not available, you’ll continue to receive service on the via T-Mobile’s EDGE network (which stands for “Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution”). This high-speed, mobile data and Internet access technology is fast enough to support a wide range of advanced data services (with average data speeds between 75-135Kbps), including full picture and video messaging, high-speed color Internet access, and email on the go.

While this phone is optimized for use with T-Mobile’s high-speed 3G network, many of its functions will also work well on the moderate-speed EDGE network. If you plan to access the Internet extensively on your phone, 3G network coverage may serve you best.

Activities that work well on EDGE or 3G networks:

• Email, instant messaging, and texting
• Downloading ringtones, CallerTunes, wallpaper, light data files
• Sending photographs via e-mail or picture messaging

Activities that work best on a 3G network:

• Viewing content-heavy websites (lots of images or videos playing)
• Viewing YouTube and other video files (they will play on EDGE, but require loading time)
• Uploading large files (photos, videos, presentations) to sharing websites
• Downloading large files from an e-mail or a website

It’s compatible with T-Mobile’s myFaves service, which allows you to call up to five of your most common contacts–on any network, even landlines–without using any of your minutes. Learn more about myFaves from T-Mobile.

Download cool new games, HiFi Ringers (real songs by today’s hottest artists), MegaTones (instrumental versions of songs), and wallpapers quickly, as well as stay connected via the Web, instant messaging, and email.

This phone is compatible with T-Mobile’s Mobile Backup, a free service that stores your phone’s contact information is case your phone is lost, stolen, or damaged, so you do not have re-enter all of your contact information when you get a new phone.

Phone Features
The slim Samsung Memoir camera phone delivers impressive images on it large 3-inch LCD color display (240 x 400 pixels, 262K colors) and offers haptic responsive feedback that vibrates when you press a button. For easy operation and navigation, the stylish Memoir features three dedicated keys–call, end call and back–on the front of the device under the touch screen. The Memoir also provides quick and easy access to a customer’s favorite features through Samsung’s innovative TouchWiz user interface, which has specially designed widgets to customize and personalize your phone. The quick and simple drag-and-drop feature provides instant access to your favorite functions, such as the clock, music player, instant messaging and photos and a custom widget for myFaves. The Memoir’s full-touch virtual QWERTY keypad and multiple messaging capabilities–including text, multimedia messaging, instant messaging and email–make staying connected quick and easy while on the go.

Other features include Assisted GPS, Bluetooth for handsfree devices and stereo music streaming, and MicroSD memory expansion to 16 GB (see larger version).

With the 8-megapixel Samsung Memoir, you’ll be able to capture all the special moments from your on-the-go life without sacrificing image quality, and the full touchscreen interface makes it easy to capture both brilliant still photos and high-resolution videos. The built-in 8-megapixel camera includes a CMOS autofocus lens, Xenon flash, 16x digital zoom, six shooting modes, multi-shot capabilities. A photo-sharing widget also makes it easy to quickly upload images to several photo sharing sites, including Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Photobucket, and Snapfish (as well as T-Mobile’s My Album online sharing service). The Memoir also includes a TV output that enables you to connect the phone to a TV or compatible monitor to display photo slideshows to friends and family on a larger format.

The phone has a 180 MB internal memory, which can be expanded via optional MicroSD memory cards (up to 16 GB in size). The internal phonebook can store up to 2000 contact entries, each with multiple numbers per contact and support for caller groups as well as picture/ringer ID. You can download MP3 real-music and 72-chord polyphonic ringtones, and the phone also includes a vibrate function for when you need to keep things silent.

Handsfree communication is easy thanks to the integrated speakerphone. This phone also provides Bluetooth wireless connectivity (version 2.0), and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, and file transfer. With the A2DP Bluetooth profile, you can stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones.

Other features include:

• Built-in A-GPS navigation allows access to location-based applications
• Virtual, landscape QWERTY touchpad
• Instant messaging via AOL, ICQ, Windows Live, and Yahoo!
• Access to personal email with document viewer for attachments
• Organizer tools: Calendar, calculator, alarm clock, task list, voice memo
• Digital medial player compatible with audio (MP3, AAC/AAC+) and video files (MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV)
• 72-note polyphonic ringtones and vibrate mode
• Sync contact swith Outlook
• USB connectivity with USB mass storage capabilities
• Voice dialing: Call someone with simple voice commands to keep your hands free for activities like driving.
• Hearing Aid Compatibility = M3
• Bluetooth version 2.0 with the following profiles: A2DP (stereo music streaming), AVRC (remote control), HFP (hands-free car kits), HSP (communication headsets), BPP (basic printing profile for text, email), FTP (file transfer), OPP (object push for business cards, calendar items, and pictures)

Vital Statistics
The Samsung Memoir weighs 4.4 ounces and measures 4.17 x 2.11 x 0.55 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 5.5 hours of talk time, and up to 300 hours of standby time. It runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE frequencies as well as 1700/2100 MHz UMTS/HSDPA 3G frequencies.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Returning Mine Tomorrow
After being very frustrated with my Blackberry Curve deleting all of my text messages and call log over and over and over again (T-Mobile tells me this is a known issue with Blackberries), I decided it was time for an upgrade. I could not decide between this and the G1, but because I have 3 small children and love snapping pics and being able to send them to friends and family, I went with the Memoir. I’ve now been using it for 3 days. There are some really cool features. I do enjoy the call features such as the speakerphone. The display is cool. The phone looks amazing. But the negatives outweigh the pros–for instance, you really can’t personalize it–there’s no adding apps or widgets suchas Facebook (which I LOVED having on my BB), there’s no WiFi, a fact I missed when trying to decide between this and the G1, and trying to text on the touchscreen is difficult-even after callibration. I also find the touchscreen to not work very smoothly–it’s definitely not as responsive as my iTouch. I definitely think it’s an upgrade over my Blackberry–minus the Facebook, of course, but I don’t think it’s the phone for me. I have a great digital camera-so I’ll just rely on it to take pics of my kids. I’m going to T-Mobile tomorrow to return this bad boy.

5 Stars Awesome!!
I’ve had this phone for a week and a half and every day I’ve been excited to find cool new features. I knew it would be great, but was really surprised by how far it exceeded my expectations. It’s definitely not perfect – there are several things that could be improved – but overall I really love it.

Great:

- 8MP Camera.

- Takes better outdoor pics than my old 5MP digital camera. Seems to like sports cars – those pics always come out awesome!

- Nice, clear screen. Zooming in/out works great.

- The touchscreen works well, and I haven’t even calibrated it yet.

- The display rotates based on how you’re holding the phone.

- Call quality is better than any cell phone I’ve ever had.

- The speakerphone is loud and clear.

- GPS works well.

- Mobile internet sites load fast and work well.

- I love having email access on my phone!

- Text messaging works great – far better than my old Samsung flip phone.

- The ‘www.’ and ‘.com’ buttons are cool for web address entry.

- Alarm settings are easy to work with.

- Overall I love the Touchwiz interface – it’s easy and fun to use. The whole phone works well as one integrated package, and is very well organized and designed.

- Setting up internet bookmarks is easy.

- Porting my number to the new service/phone was easy and fast.

- It took nearly an hour of video on a single battery charge, with juice left over for surfing and taking a dozen pics.

Ok:

- USB file transfer seems faster than Bluetooth, and charges the phone simultaneously

- The Samsung software (downloaded from their website) works well to pull images and videos off the phone via USB, and to work with the files on my PC. But why should these be required? Why not let the PC recognize and access it as a native device like it does via Bluetooth?

Could be better:

- Regular internet sites can fail to load or display, or take a really long time to do both. (That’s partly the cellular service.) I’m spending most of my time on sites that have a mobile version for phones.

- Picture quality varies depending on lighting. Indoor shots frequently come out yellow and fuzzy.

- Sometimes the camera seems to focus on anything but what you’re aiming at, so the subject is blurry but the background and foreground is sharp. (I have not tried different settings yet – just pointed and shot.)

- The screen could be bigger. Especially since I’m so addicted to it and am using it to surf all the time!

- Bluetooth file transfer (of 8MP pics) isn’t very fast and uses lots of battery power.

- The phone doesn’t tell me when it’s fully charged while using the wall charger. (It does if it’s charging via USB.)

- Amazon signed me up for a $19.99 100MB/month data plan that wasn’t compatible with the phone. Only the $24.99 unlimited data plans (and higher) seem to work.

4 Stars Nice phone and excellent deal from Amazon
Pretty nice phone overall. The camera flash could be improved. It doesn’t have enought flash for indoor pics.

1 Star Wow..yellow and blurry pictures
Well, the title says it all. I was so excited to get this phone but after I took so many pictures I found out that most of my indoor pictures are yellow (flash is not strong enough) and blurry. It’s on the way back to Tmobile now. The outdoor pictures are not great also. It’s about the same as my old Tmobile Dash phone.

3 Stars Forget the GPS
The only way the GPS on this phone works is if you subscribe to the Telenav software service for a fee of $9.99 a month. The phone is unable to download the free google maps program which will do the same job for free. Also the GPS software will waste a few minutes while it connects to Telenav to verify your account. After that you still have to go into the menu to activate your gps reciever and wait a few minutes to get a signal.

That is the biggest complaint I have about this phone. I upgraded from my nokia N93. Compared to the N93 I found that the memoir does not have WiFi, a focusing lense, a flashlight, and is unable to take video in lowlight conditions.

Buy/More Info

BlackBerry Curve 8900 Phone Titanium T Mobile

Updating the look of the Curve with a sleekly styled titanium finish, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 for T-Mobile is the thinnest and lightest full-QWERTY BlackBerry smartphone yet. In addition to its stunning good looks–with titanium-colored finish accented by chrome highlights–the Curve 8900 is packed with communication and location features. The built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) supports both voice and data, making it easier to stay connected to family, friends and colleagues using T-Mobile’s Unlimited HotSpot Calling service, while the built-in GPS supports location-based services including turn-by-turn navigation.

With its stunning titanium-colored finish and chrome highlights, the sleek and slender design of the BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone dresses it for any occasion (see larger image). Check out the Curve 8900 101 video demo.

And, of course, you’ll enjoy all the communication and connectivity features you’ve come to expect from a Blackberry phone–including email served up by the BlackBerry Internet Service and a full menu of messaging options (SMS, MMS, and IM). The handset’s advanced multimedia capabilities include a 3.2-megapixel camera with image stabilization, digital zoom, flash and the ability to record video and play video. Other features include a hot-swappable MicroSD/SDHC memory card slot (for cards up to 16 GB; 256 MB card included), Bluetooth for handsfree communication and stereo music streaming, multi-format digital audio player, unlimited any-network calling to any 5 people with a myFaves plan, and up to 5.5 hours of talk time.

T-Mobile Service Options
With T-Mobile HotSpot Enabled service, you’ll effortlessly transition between Wi-Fi calling and T-Mobile’s wireless network while you talk. You can get unlimited nationwide calls over Wi-Fi–at home via your wireless router or at any U.S. T-Mobile HotSpot. You can also use the HotSpot Enabled service via most open, or unsecured, wireless routers, as well as any secured wireless router for which you have access to the password from the owner. This phone is compatible with the 802.11b/g Wi-Fi standard as well as the following Wi-Fi Alliance certifications: WPA/WPA2 Personal and Enterprise, WMM, WMM Power Save, Wi-Fi Protected Setup. Whenever you’re not using a Wi-Fi network, the Curve works just like a regular mobile phone, using your Whenever Minutes under your T-Mobile voice plan.

Additionally, this mobile phone operates on GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks and can handle high-speed data connectivity via T-Mobile’s EDGE network (which stands for “Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution”). As a quad-band world phone, this phone supports international roaming, extending the ability to stay connected while traveling abroad. This high-speed, mobile data and Internet access technology is fast enough to support a wide range of advanced data services (with average data speeds between 75-135Kbps), including full picture and video messaging, high-speed color Internet access, and email on the go.

This phone also includes compatibility with T-Mobile’s myFaves service, which allows you to call up to five of your most common contacts–on any network, even landlines–without using any of your minutes. Learn more about myFaves from T-Mobile.

Download cool new games, HiFi Ringers (real songs by today’s hottest artists), MegaTones (instrumental versions of songs), and wallpapers quickly, as well as stay connected via the Web, instant messaging, and email.

The Curve 8900 includes Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth stereo music streaming, GPS navigation capabilities, MicroSD expansion to 16 GB, and more (see larger image).

Staying Connected
With BlackBerry’s push email technology, your email will find you without having to initiate a connection. BlackBerry devices are designed to remain on and continuously connected to the wireless network, notifying you as new email arrives. In addition to the text, you can also receive and view attachments in a wide range of popular file formats, including Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect, and Adobe PDF.

Browse the web with the integrated, full-featured browser, which quickly and efficiently displays HTML pages as well as enables you to set up RSS feeds to stay connected to up-to-the-minute news and blog posts. And keep up with your contacts using a variety of instant message (IM) networks, including the integrated Blackberry Messenger as well as downloadable clients for Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and Lotus Sametime.

For corporate users, the Curve delivers all the enterprise email and messaging capabilities you’ve come to expect. It’s supported on BlackBerry Internet Service, giving you access to up to 10 work or personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts), as well as BlackBerry Enterprise Server, enabling advanced security and IT administration within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise environments.

Phone Features
With a refined design, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone supports both your professional and personal mobile communication needs to help you enjoy a more organized, balanced life. In addition to a sleek, stylish design, the powerful new smartphone includes a large, vivid display–the highest resolution available on a BlackBerry smartphone–as well as a 512 MHz next-generation processor for fast and responsive performance.

The striking 2.4-inch, 480 x 360-pixel display (65K colors) serves up crisp images, text and maps so information is easier to read, even when you’re on the go. It also includes a light-sensing feature that automatically adjusts backlighting for indoor, outdoor and dark environments. Like other Curve models, the Curve 8900 includes a trackball navigation system located on the top of the QWERTY keypad, and it features an integrated spell checker with a customizable dictionary to help maintain accuracy.

You can snap vivid photos as well as video clips using the 3.2-megapixel camera on the back of the Curve, which also features a 2x digital zoom, auto focus, image stabilization, and a flash. Transfer pictures and videos between your smartphone and your desktop computer easily using the USB cable that comes with the smartphone, or via Bluetooth technology.

You can also capture video clips on the go, with two resolution choices–480 x 352 pixels for saving to your PC and 176 x 144 pixels for sending via MMS messaging. In addition to recording videos, the Curve 8900 also supports mobile video streaming as well as videos saved from your PC. It’s compatible with DivX, XviD (MPEG4 Advance Simple Profile), H.263, and WMV3 formats.

Listen to your favorite music using the included stereo headset, or use an optional wireless headphone thanks to the Curve’s support for the Bluetooth stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP). The Curve is compatible with a wide variety of file formats (.3gp, WAV, MIDI, AMR-NB, G711u/A, GSM610, PCM, MP3, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, WMA9/10 Standard/Pro) and dedicated volume controls are conveniently located on the side of the handset.

Handsfree communication is easy thanks to the integrated speakerphone. This phone also provides Bluetooth wireless connectivity (version 2.0 + EDR), and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, and file transfer. You can connect your laptop (either via Bluetooth or wired USB) and enjoy dial-up networking–surf the Internet, send email, and access files from a server.

With the Voice-Activated Dialing (VAD) feature, you can initiate a call just by telling the Curve who to call from your contact list–either via the integrated speakerphone or using an optional Bluetooth wireless headset. Other advanced phone features include advanced sound technology that cancels out background noise and echo, dedicated volume and mute keys, and the ability to customize the Curve with polyphonic and MP3 ringtones.

Capture high-resolution photos and videos with the 3.2-megapixel camera on the back.

The BlackBerry Browser on the Curve 8900 is designed to make on-the-go Internet browsing fast and fun–you can even start a search right from the home page. Navigate sites and zoom in on content using a trackball-controlled pointer, set bookmarks and view your history. Plus, the BlackBerry Browser works with a host of other applications to make things like online purchasing and tracking information on your favorite pages easier.

The easier a map is to read, the easier it is to follow. Together with BlackBerry Maps, the crisp, colorful screen of the Curve 8900 is designed to make it easier to find the location of businesses, restaurants, concert venues, parks and more by allowing you to check maps and get driving directions quickly and conveniently. When you’re connected to the network, you can even launch maps from your address book. BlackBerry Maps is also designed to help make trips easier by providing route options like fastest or shortest and displaying directions visually along with text-based turn-by-turn instructions.

Whether your instant messaging (IM) account is with Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ or Windows Live Messenger, you can bring your IM community wherever life takes you. Like the desktop versions, these programs offer features like avatars and emoticons. And, because BlackBerry applications work together, you can also start an IM chat from your address book, call or email an IM contact while chatting or even check your calendar right from a chat.

Other features include:

• Easily synch with Microsoft Outlook: Stay in synch with your Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks in Microsoft Outlook
• Edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files: Just download attachments and start typing. You’ll enjoy many of the same features you do on your computer–copy and paste, font size and color, even bullets and numbering and more.
• Remote Search: If you prefer not to carry all your email on your Curve 8900 smartphone, Remote Search can be used to find emails that are still stored on your BlackBerry Enterprise Server using name, subject and other options to narrow the field.
• BlackBerry Media Sync: Sync your desktop iTunes music files with your BlackBerry smartphone.
• Free/Busy Lookup: View your colleagues’ calendars to see who’s available at what time right from your BlackBerry smartphone.
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds support: With RSS, you don’t need to check important websites for updates, new content can be pushed to you automatically.
• Send and receive text and picture messages (SMS and MMS)
• Bluetooth version 2.0 + EDR with the following profiles: A2DP (stereo music streaming), AVRC (remote control), HFP (hands-free car kits), HSP (communication headsets), DUN (dial-up networking), FTP (file transfer), PBA (transfer contacts)

Vital Statistics
The Blackberry Curve 8900 weighs 3.9 ounces and measures 2.4 x 4.3 x 0.5 inches. Its 1400 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 5.5 hours of talk time, and up to 360 hours (15 days) of standby time. It runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE frequencies.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Needs a 4.5 star option.
Is this the perfect phone, you will never need to buy another phone in your life…. no its not.

As far as the phone goes, calls have all been clear, on UMA (this rocks btw), on edge, on bluetooth, and on speaker phone, works great as a phone! clear on both ends.

I text alot, comming from a non qwerty phone, this one was easy to adapt too, I have normal hands I guess, if you bite your nails you may have issues. Ive tried the G1 and while the keys are more spread out, I felt this phone was more comfortable to type with.

Emails are awesome, I set up my work OWA, hotmail, gmail, yahoo, and they all work like a champ and notify me when I have new emails. Pretty easy set up as well. on BIS

Cam is awesome 3.2meg, descent colors for a camera, and a flash. Also has a video cam… not so great resolution, but just ok for MMS, or you tube quality. I have only used mine as a flashlight with the one touch button on the left side and that is super nice to hit that button and the bright LED comes on to light up whatever you need.

as a pda with the contacts and dates and calanders, all work very well and reminders all work well.

Contact list has tons of space to put in everything about the contacts

It also has a normal size headphone jack, and not the tiny one.

I would have loved to have the normal USB jack and I see alot of people are complaining about that… for me if I needed too, I could google ‘micro usb to mini usb adaptor’ And see that for a few bucks I can get some adaptors and not have a problem with that.

And of course e bay has tons of chargers, car/desk/usb and screen protectors and cases… all for pretty cheap.

And onto browsing… not something I like to do on any phone, because the screen is to small, I looked at the iphone, and g1, and storm, and none of them I could see myself browsing the internet with, its just not easy to read. However apps that have BB adjusted web pages are nice to scroll around, facebook, and myspace, and youtube, viigio, crackberry of course, are easy to navigate.

The Apps store is a nice place to get alot of free apps, weather included. I use weathereye and it pushes data to the phone and is free, there are lots of them… Since I am coming from Verizon, all this free apps is totally foreign to me hehe.

For themes I found plenty(free) after googleing for under 5 min, and I could also make my own with a free bb theme creator.

GPS, and maps. work well and update fast. This is the only time I noticed 3G being an issue, is that the maps did not update as fast as I was driveing.

I have had no issues with the track ball, and Ive played alot of brick breaker.

I hear alot about battery pulls with BB’s I have yet to do this. and I have upgraded my OS last night to v 4.6.1.231 and that was fun, everything seems a little bit snappier.

something else I dont like is the memory card slot. With finger nails and all It was a pain to get the worthless 256m card out, Luckily its not something you need to swap since with the usb cable you can plug it into the PC and see the drive.

Battery life I dont have a problem with, it seems to have no problems holding a charge with a full days use.

Overall I think this phone is a keeper, Ive had no problems with T-mob even after I returned the G1 after a day. I have not had a dropped call, or been out of a service area yet

5 Stars Killer!
The killer app for the Blackberry is, and has been the OS. It is the most stable, reliable, and advanced operating system of an smartphone around. I’ve used the G1, Treo’s, Sidekicks, Windows devices and others, this trumps them all.

The 8900 is not my first BlackBerry. It will not be my last either since I’m sure they will have something new and lovely I want in a year or two, for now though I’m more than satisfied.

Things I Rave about:

1) Memory! I have 12 third party applcations installed and still have more memory free than the older Blackberry’s come with.

2) Audio Video. The screen and speaker are better than any other mobile device around.

3) Emaill. It’s a BlackBerry, it doing this right all the time is a no brainer.

Things I merely love.

1) The browser. While it is improved over older devices, it is not quite on par with the G1.

2) Camera. It has a great lens, great software to process the pic and is sharp and adjustable. Sadly when trying to zoom in and out the movement is slower than scrolling in other applications.

The one thing I dislike is the switch from the mini-usb to the micro-usb. And for that this review is really only a 4.85

3 Stars Great features, stable performance, one serious flaw
Overall it is a great “Smartphone” and the best I’ve used thus far when it comes to stable, usable performance. I have, however, found it to have one serious flaw – there is something wrong with the ear speaker. In-call volume is so low as to render the phone fairly unusable except in very quiet environments. It is not an OS/Software issue (at least not after having tried 2 OS updates with no fix), but appears to be a physical problem related to the speaker (and I’m not the only one to have noticed this issue with the 8900). My only solution has been to use the speakerphone at full volume on all calls…..this works because the sound is projected both front and back of the unit when you use the speakerphone.

4 Stars This thing is nearly perfect
I trust you already know the specs, so I’ll focus on the only negatives.

1) the trackball thing sometimes gets stuck and won’t move. I think this might be a common problem and I don’t have a lot of confidence it will continue to become easily unstuck several years from now. This is – by far – the largest negative.

2) the usb connection is a micro, not mini, usb. nothing you probably own will fit it, so you will need to buy all new accessories.

3) the micro-sd card that comes with it is WAY too small. I found an 8GB card to be adequate for photos, music, etc.

The pros are size, keyboard and screen, but everybody else already covered that.

5 Stars Of the 43 phones I’ve burned through in 3 years:
Hey all, I want to make a few things clear before I get too deep into my review. There’s been a lot of myths about BlackBerry that quite simply aren’t true. First and foremost, this phone is NOT just a business phone, it can be optimized and customized to whatever you’d like. As of the past 3 days, I haven’t needed to use my computer for anything except writing this review. Like I said in the title, I’ve been through 43 different phones on 4 different networks in 3 years. I’ve seen everything from the BB Pearl to the iPhone to the Samsung Instinct. As someone that has had a lot of different phones, both low end and high end, I feel like I’ve seen quite a bit of good things and bad things on all phones. My review is unbiased, as all reviews should be.

The Pros:

-WiFi and WiFi calling is simply awesome. This is a must because I don’t get any cell phone reception at my house. I had a G1 and although it had WiFi, it would not connect to my router and it didn’t feature WiFi calling.

-Screen is beautiful. Don’t let the size fool you, it IS smaller than an iPhone screen, but the fact is this screen is the closest you will find to true HD on a cell phone. Although HD currently doesn’t exist on cell phones in the US, this phone has a very clear screen that just glows.

-Camera is AMAZING. For a cell phone camera, this thing blows my mind, it takes better pictures than my old digital camera of the same resolution. It’s a 3.2 Megapixel, but I swear it’s much MUCH better than that. I took a picture of a pair of shoes, and I could see the grains in the leather, I could see the finest details. Best camera I’ve EVER seen on a phone.

-Call quality is superb. With T Mobiles service, the reception area isn’t as broad as I’d like, but even with the spotty areas of service, I haven’t dropped a call yet. Great job with the quality, and shouldn’t this be the most important detail of all?

-Applications: No, it doesn’t have an app store nearly as immense as the iPhone, but rest assured, the BlackBerry faithful have found ways to make apps for all your favorite stuff. The phone ships with a complete mobile office suite. It comes with a word processor, spreadsheet reader, and all the other goods that you would want with a business phone. It’s nice having that XLS reader/editor, because I can easily track and update the rosters on all my favorite teams from anywhere.

-Battery Life: WOW! That’s all I can say, from the get go, you’re going to notice the battery is quite a big larger than other cell phone batteries. Like most people know, when you’re in the atmosphere of smartphones, a bigger battery almost instantly means better battery life, and this phone is no different. Thanks to the updated processor (which is incredible), the phone optimizes the phones different processes to make the battery life better. On the information above, it tells you that you can get 5.5 hours talk time, I got 7 hours of talk time on one battery charge. Most normal cell phones don’t even get that.

One other thing a lot people are asking about is tethering, and while T Mobile doesn’t technically offer it, there is an application called TetherBerry that will let you use the BlackBerry for tethering.

Overall: I know I’ve said a million different things up there, but the bottom line is this:

This phone can be anything you want it to be, whether it’s a social networking tool, or a business tool. This phone does anything you want it to. It’s the whole package, and I think I’m done seeing other phones, I’m ready to settle down with this one.

Buy/More Info

"Despite its worldwide leadership in the handset market, the company's chief executive describes how Nokia is building its U.S. business beyond cell phones."...Nokia is in the midst of branching out to offers additional services and applications like multimedia, navigation, gaming, and location-based services. Nokia's CEO said he sees this as ...

AT&T has launched their new assisted GPS technology on its GSM network to enhance its current and future location based services. This will effect all A-GPS capable devices. I am not the most technical person, but it sounds like this technology finds your location first using cell tower triangulation, then pinpoints your location via GPS satellites. This increases speed and accuracy. This sounds like what Verizon and a few other carriers have been doing for years or at least with VZnavigat

Location-based services refer to applications that use knowledge of the geographical position of a mobile device to provide services based on that information. Such services include navigation assistance, identification in case of emergency or disaster relief, social networking through finding friends, map assistance through locating points of interest etc. The prerequisite to LBS is correct positioning technology, a geographical information system that maps the areas and an able milieu in th