Excellence of the 8800
 

Now nearing the end of day three, of heavy usage with my 8800 I can say that the 8700 seems antique.

Now that I own four BlackBerry's, 7130, 8100, 8700, 8800 I can speak from experience. The new 8800 is a very nice new model.

The biggest concern I had was the keyboard, as I found the 8700 keyboard dreadful. The 8800 has a fantastic keyboard. The very best qwerty I have used period. And that's after having experience with Treos, a Moto-Q and a Blackjack. Nothing even comes close to the high quality keyboard on this 8800. Now I finally have a qwerty that is almost as fast as the SureType on my 7130c.

There are simply too many improvements and great new features on the 8800 to summarize without going into great detail.

RIM hit a home run on this one. And to think that it's only going to get better as they progress forward with the 9xxx.

Cheers...
__________________

I agree. Only negatives so far that I find are (1) no single letter shortcuts to apps and (2) smaller keyboard. But the latter should feel fine in a day or so. The Wall Street Journal review today was too brutal on that point.

I have used my 8800 keyboard to process more than 100 emails since I first picked it up at 9am three days ago.

I am very picky about keyboards (for ex: the keyboard on my 8700 is dreadful) and I can honestly say this is the best qwerty keyboard I've ever used.

If I remember correctly to use the single letter shortcuts you must turn off dial from home screen. They are there. I'm using them.

Cheers...

I have not found the keyboard difficult to adjust to either. As Greg points out, the build quality feels much more solid than the 8700.

I don't think the WSJ was hard enough and I sure hope the 9xxx series takes into consideration guys with large hands and fingers.

d