The "Unleash" technology looks interesting. However, if I read the site correctly, there is a small "base station" that needs to be attached to the handheld. Looks an awful lot like a Bluetooth dongle on the Jabra BT200. If both "Unleash" and the BT200 have little dongles that attach to the handhled, then feel free to pick whichever suits you better. The Jabra dongle has a belt clip

But in either case, true Bluetooth support (or any other technology) would be a nice addition to be able to eliminate dongles alltogether.

Ian

In terms of 'line of sight' requirement or anything else is one better than the other?

All I know about Magnetic Induction is what I saw on their web-site. I have a Jabra BT200, and I really like it. But I haven't really tested its limits. The dongle is usual either on my belt or sitting next to me in the car, on the passenger seat.

Test its limits?

In terms of line of sight? and Voice dialling etc?

thanks a lot

I have no voice dialing option on my Blackberry, so no way to test. I will try to do some tests on line of sight when I get home this evening -- cell phone covereage in my office is for the dogs.

Which blackberries DO have voice dialing? Is it the kind where you're dialing a number to say what number you want to dial, or is it actually part of the OS itself?

hi
were you able to check out the BT range etc?
thanks!

I don't think any Blackberry offers voice dialing directly - I'm not sure about the Nextel phones, since I've never used one. AT&T has a service where you dial a 3 digit number (#323, I think) and it then lets you dial by voice. Costs around $3 or $4 per month.

As for the range on the BT200 -- sorry, I did not get the chance to test this out. But take a look at the Jabra web site, and do a quick google search -- I'm sure I've seen lots of discussion around BT range and line of sight issues. Sorry.

There is no model of BlackBerry that offers voice dialing. I am sure they will be looking at implementing it in the future because it is a nice feature to have. I miss that feature coming from a Nokia phone.

BB Tech
From the 7290 user guide I am not able to make out if the screen display is the one from the 77xx series (brighter backlight) or the 7230s? Would you know something about this?

7290 will have the 77xx series LED backlight. That is the future of all LCD displays blackberry or not. Truth is they just figured out how to make "white" LED light in like 2000, and by the time they figured out how to mass manufacture them, here we are today.

bb-tech

I've hear that the 7290 will come out as early as October 1st, and as late as Christmas. I'm in the market for some Berries, but am anxiously holding out for the 7290s.

Any better idea on when I'll be able to activate one of these puppies?

It won't be october 1st, a carrier intending to ship by that date would have already started receiving product from rim and would have also announced the device officially. Realistically, you have no chance of it being out before mid october now.

That's a load of crap, we'll hit Oct 1, easy. We've got promotional materials, just finished a conference call with our internal BB Techs. We've got dummy phones, posters, the works. And it's been announced for about two weeks now on our site. Our internal site lists Sept 30th as the full launch date. We've managed to hit our launch dates when we nail dates down like that. If you're considering a 7100t, I tell you it will be out Oct 1st, no matter WHAT Skive thinks.

I think Skive was talking about the 7290 and NOT the 7100T.

Not a load of crap at all, simply you being a bit dense and not spotting that i was answering the previous question. :D

I don't doubt you'll meet the shipping date, it was only announced a couple of weeks ago so it would have tough for everything to have not been sorted by then.

On the subject of posters, vodafone have started replacing some of their blackberry posters in places like heathrow with 7100v posters.

But do you expect that I'll have to wait until Christmas?

You'd think that any carrier who was going to ship the 7290 from the very beginning would want it in the shops in plenty of time for christmas with the 7100 being out.

I think its probably going to be an announcement early october and shipping early november, otherwise it would be leaving things a bit too late from a marketting kind of perspective.

The obvious question would seem to be whether its ready now and simply being held back to stagger the press releases or whether it has extra features over the 7100 that are delaying things slightly.