Ok this is the question.. im sold on the black berry however Im not sure wich form factor to use. my options are the 7130e or the 8700 series. what are your preferences? Do you notice a difference when using email or web browsing ( do to the orientation of the screen / vert vs. horiz layout) ?

I have the 8700g and I'm soo happy about it. I don't know about the 7130e. But if you want you can go to cnet.com, very helpful site. They review and rate gadgets. I always go there before I buy something.

To my mind the biggest reason to pick one form factor over the other is primary use. Do you plan to use your blackberry primarily as a phone and to access e-mail and to send e-mail occasionally? Then pick the 7100/7130 form factor. If you plan on doing heavy messaging e-mail/sms/IM then stick with the QWERTY. With bluetooth, I'd say you're generally better off using the QWERTY style blackberry.

Also just personal user experience the 8700 seems faster than any of the 7130's currently availble in the US

Really depends on if you want a full QWERTY keyboard, or SureType. Also, what carrier you are on, may limit your options.

I was able to easily get used to SureType. I am a heavy T9 texter on my cell phone and it was about the same concept. So the suretype vs. full keyboard was not an issue to me.

The biggest reason I went to the 7130c from the 8700c was form factor. I loved how small and slim it was. When I placed the 8700c against my head it looked funky. I preferred the smaller size. Was able to use my smaller purses again. Ha.

I never got used to Suretype. Too many words spelled wrong and then I had to go back and correct them (there's even a thread on words that Suretype can't figure out). The form factor is great, but I must have a full QWERTY keyboard...

8700 is the best BB I've used and I am sure the new variatns (8703, 8705) will be just as great.

i LOVE cnet

I switched to a 7100(Sure Type) fm a 7230 (QWERTY), and I've had little problem in converting from one to the other. I do like on the 7100 where the OS will default to multi-tap when surfing a site that requires a password. I also like that when putting in the password that the OS doesn't automatically capitalize the word. That was such a pain on my old device.

You may want to wait till next week Tuesday. The 8100 is comming out if you don't know that already.