mrisch's Full Review: RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 Smartphone
So, it's been nearly 4 years to the day that I got (and wrote an epinion about) my Samsung i730, which, at the time, was the state of the art. It was time for a change, and I went for a new cutting edge phone, the Blackberry Tour 9630 (my provider is Sprint).
A bit about the size - it is shorter and half the thickness of my i730, and way, way lighter. The screen is brighter, and the sound quality is good (much better than my i730). The coverage is also good - even at 1 bar I've been able to hear clearly. The vibrate is a little weak for my taste, but you can customize it to go longer and for more iterations. I like that. Battery life seems to be up to specifications (5 hours talk) so far, though I always charge. Sprint includes a 1GB microSD card (Verizon, I'm told, has a 2GB). I'll probably buy 8 or 16 GB, and you should too if you plan to use this for music and photos.
This isn't a touchscreen phone - it has a keyboard and trackball. The keys are a bit cramped together, but they are contoured such that I've only had a single mis-typed key in several days of use. One drawback on the keyboard is that the period key is an "alt" key - kind of a pain for everyday typing. The trackball works fine as well - I adjusted the sensitivity a bit to suit my tastes.
Like all BB devices, email is great - and I use Blackberry Enterprise Server without a hitch with my employer. My email folders show up, etc. I don't like that I can't see what's in all my folders because I do a lot of auto-sorting on new mail, but I can use the built-in web browser to do that if I need. Texting, IM, Facebook app, etc. are all there as well.
I used the Sprint Navigation system the first time the other day. It had some trouble with the backroads near where I live, but so does Google Maps, so I'm OK with that. Once I got on a main road, it gave flawless directions to our destination (which I found via the search function, very nice). I have been eyeballing GPS devices, and this phone saves me the trouble and cost. One tip - set the prefs to turn off backlight except for turns only, or you'll eat up your battery?
The camera is also outstanding - 3.2 megapixel allows for printable photos. The auto-focus works well, and there is a flash, though the flash wasn't quite strong enough for a pretty dark area. I took a bunch of pictures, sent them from the phone via email, and made one my backdrop. There's a 2x digital zoom, and the quality is fine, but the zoomed pics looked a little fuzzy in larger size on my computer - we'll see how they print out. Even so, this is as good a camera as I've seen in a cell phone - it replaced our family digital camera on a recent trip (well, we forgot it). Note also that there's an option in the advanced options to make the BB as "mass usb device" (like an SD card) when you connect by USB cable. If you set that option you don't need Blackberry Desktop or BB Media Manager to transfer everything on the microSD card (that is, your photos and music) - you can do it on any computer via USB cable and drive letter assignment.
Sprint doesn't support visual voicemail, so I signed up for a free service call YouMail and downloaded an app called VyMail, which provides visual voicemail and emails you your voicemail as well. You have to call Sprint technical support to change the busy/no answer call forwarding away from Sprint VM to YouMail, and it may take talking to 10 different people to get it done. That's what it took for me until I found someone who was familiar with what needed to be done. DO NOT let them set up "immediate" call forwarding (or *72) - you won't get ANY calls that way.
Bluetooth setup went well and was easy. I haven't used the wireless earpiece enough to say how well it works, though I do know that anything will be better than the i730 on that front.
I could list all the other features, but I expect anyone doing serious shopping will look at the website for them. I've described the key ones here. Note that it's a world phone, so you can use it in other countries, and I believe it is unlocked, so you can even buy local sim cards for it.
One drawback so far, and I expect it to be fixed soon, is that there is no "Today" theme that shows my upcoming appointments on the home screen. That was something I loved about my Windows Mobile operating system. Why RIM doesn't offer this out of the box, I don't know, but I'll have to wait until someone programs the theme for the Tour to get that feature.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199 Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must!
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