Nextel 7100i, Your Opinion...
 

hi,

well this is my first post here so an introduction may be needed:

my name is dennis and i'm rather new to the whole blackberry devices, so please bear with me if i ask some amature questions.

i am considering the nextel 7100i since i am already a nextel subscriber. what are your inputs on this blackberry?

what are the pros and cons? any tips from those who already have it?

if i do get it, it will be used for mainly personal use and some business.

thanks,
dennis

Hi Dennis. Welcome. I bought the 7100i and just recently bought a 7520 which some people may view as going backwards. Here are my observations:

The 7100i is nice if you really, really want a phone size device. The screen is nice and the suretype works better than I ever imagined it would.

However..............after using the 7100i for a while I really started to love the Blackberry and decided that I should have bought the full size 7520 instead. I finally found one just like brand new on eBay and bought it. The screen is larger but the resolution isn't as high. For a person not interested in showing off photos all the time, it's not a big deal. What I did notice is that the 7520 gets a better signal than my 7100i which is really important to me since I live in an area where service is not as good as it can be. Another thing I noticed is that the 7100i felt cheap and plasticy (sp). The 7520 quality is far superior. Let me put it this way. The 7100i is a Chevy and the 7520 is a BMW. There are some annoying things like the 7520 does not have send and end keys. You do it with the scroll wheel. I got used to it right away. The other thing is that the 7520 backlight doesn't come on unless you press the backlight button. That was crazy but a little program called BBLight fixed that. All in all both BB's will do the job but the 7520 has captured my heart. The 7100i will stay in a drawer as a backup.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

Suretype -vs-qwerty will be a constant debate.... If you want form factor then go with suretype, if you want qwerty then go with another qwerty BB device :)