I'm in CT with T-Mo. Anyone noticing that the 8100 seems to switch more often to GPRS than the 8700. I've noticed in certain areas that only GPRS seems available and I could swear I used to have EDGE coverage.

Anyone else or is it me?

I am in NYC and I have also noticed the poor EDGE on the 8100.. when I first got the pearl I also had a 7100i so I took both out to see which had better signal and NEXTEL won hands down!!! I was getting much better signal in many places with the 7100i than the pearl. SO i think it has to do with the size of the pearl and how small the pick for radio is on it. I have seen the pics where they say the whole bottom piece is the antenna but it seams to lack skillz in the reception part. Sorry that was a little off topic... When i go into subway stations it switches to GPRS and then to gprs so I agree 100% with you.

I haven't been able to see any pattern although I think your assumption is right. The 8100 seems to be less sensitive to signals than my 8700. It will frequently drop the signal in fringe areas that the 8700 used to hold tight.

I have seen some full strength areas where the phone dropped to GPRS but I cannot say for sure whether that was the result of truly no EDGE or whether it's the phone's lack of sensitivity.

On my 8100 I almost always have EDGE in NYC and northern New Jersey.

I must admit that I've never had the 8700, so the pearl is my first edge phone, but I travel to about 3 cities a week (and different cities every week), and I've been able to keep edge almost without fail in those cities with edge (Green Bay might take a while).

Popped my Cingular SIM into the 8100 and I no longer am seeing the changeover between EDGE / GPRS -- it is all solid EDGE.

Am thinking that T-Mobile may have an issue or that Cingular is using a different frequency that the 8100 is better able to receive.