I have been testing out a Verizon 8703 for the last week or two and it is pretty much the same as the Cingular 8700 except for slightly more sluggish performance and about 1/3-1/4 the battery life. I do like the black and silver styling of it. According to our service reps, it should be commercially available in about 2 weeks.

if your test unit is noticeably slower and the battery life is that much worse, all this aniticipation may be for nothing... argh...

If you had a Cingular 8700...yes. But if you have been using a 6700, 7250, or 7700 line device....Welcome to the 21st century!

Must be the delay is verizon is still testing the blackberry to see if its up to verizon's standards. ha ha ha ha

Get with it folks cdma is not the future, its the past. It's amazing RIM is even wasting its time and money making cdma phones. GSM is the global standard for mobile communication.

I have to admit, I have good reception in places I had nothing with either Nextel or Cingular.

global standard yes, i agree, but most of us, even those of us who do intn'l business, would the rliability of cdma. In the US, which i travel frequently domestically, Verizon is the best, i have a verizon razr and a cingular 8700c and my razr ALWAYS works, not even close with my BB so to say it's a waste is inaccurate....

Verizon 8703e flyer posted. Internet sales 9/17, B2B 9/18

Verizon Wireless gives the green light to the 8703e - Engadget Mobile

My signature says it all

The Engaget Mobile flyer shows 8703e has having the exact same processor. There's no new processor? Same speed as 7250?

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry7130e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/126)

Ya. I just noticed that.may be this is just a mistake... I had confirmed that all of the 87xx series were to have Intel processors.

this is very troubling.... dowright disturbing... it's like taking a pc with core dou's and sticking a p6 chip inthere???????????

Kablooey stated earlier that, based on his testing, the 8703e is more sluggish than the Cingular 8700 which, if he is to be believed, would lend credibility to the Engadget flyer. Either way it's not good.

im starting to feel sluggish. like waiting on line for a rollercoaster, then when its your turn to get on it breaks down...

I don't understand,,,,Does someone who has some experience with these types of scenarios explain why there ia a difference? I have seen people guessing, but is there a solid answer to why:

The 8703 would not have the same processor as the 8700c? Or if they actually do have the same THEN has Verizon done something to the phone to make it more sluggish?

Does the signal it self seem to be stable or does it fluctuate?

I just left T-Mo b/c of poor voice quality in the phone in NYC. Do you think that the voice quality on the Vzw device will be better?

Thanks.

YES!!!!!!!!!!! TMOBILE is dog shit...Verizon is hands down the best voice service out there...Data, well that's another question.

Potentially stupid question --- what is B2B?

If this really is the downgraded processor, will that be noticed by someone that isn't moving from a BB to the 8703? I'll be moving from a Treo650... What about performance difference in 7130 and 8703?

I thought the current Verizon 7250 had the ARM9 processor? or is tha the same thing? If there's no upgrade to speed from 7250-that would be a joke. They want us to pay $350 with 2 year basically for a speakere, cool ringtones, and a better screen?

I agree, if the process is infact the same (7250 vs 8703) this is not a big updgrade. You get more memory, better screen and speakerphone.

Does anyone know what the processor is on the 7130?

Personally, I'm torn. I'm not sure I want to spend $300 plus on the 8703. Decision time....

I was in the Verizon store today getting my address book transferred to my 7250. A Verizon Rep showed me on a verizon website that the 8703e would be released on 9/17 on the internet and 9/18 to business customers. There was no date given for in store purchase. I think someone may have posted these dates in earlier replies...but I saw this information...on a verizon internal site...he stated that they were not supposed to give that kind of information out... so he showed me on his computer screen. Lets keep our fingers crossed. Like I said, someone may have already posted this info...so count this as a confirmation.

Why would the Verizon store be transfering contact info to your BB?

9/17 is a Sunday...

GSM is an overweight, overlayed, kludged together, messy, and an inferior technology to CDMA. It's part of the reason why Cingular's service is so bad.

The only reason GSM has ANY future is its wide deployment and low licensing costs.

One of the main uses of my cell phone is to have voice conversations. The only people that drop calls when I speak with them are on GSM carriers...

I wonder why that is...

thats funny, i got a t-mo phone, a nextel, a sprint and every girl i've dated has had cingular for some odd reason. CDMA sound quality def doesn't sound as good as GSM (actually should be TDMA). Drop calls, it depends who you are. Their all great (except for nextel) which is the only one I can say sucks (but i also meet people that swear by nextel), but Verizon and Sprint have never worked in places I lived at. Does not mean it sucks, cause I can go outside and meet someone that says their company is the shit and everyone else drops calls. They all have there up and downs, but theres a company for everyone.

Stop blaming the network, blame yourself for not finding a company that works for you to begin with. Half of the time its your jacked up phone.

And what knowledge do you have in network technology before you made the asumption that GSM is an overweight, overlayed, kludged together, messy, and an inferior technology to CDMA.

How wrong you are....And CDMA is a superior technology and WILL be here for years to come, only getting better..TMOBILE IS AWFUL

OK, the process on the Cingular 8700 is a 312 MHz Intel PXA901 Hermon processor. Engadget mobile says that the VZW 8703e is a MSM6500 processor. So, I dont know if Engadget article is wrong or what.

Yes, we see that....I would assume it's an error. I have great difficulty understanding how or why RIM would put out a new device with a processor some two years old

The signal appears to fluctuate quite a bit when in an area of low coverage. It will go from 2-3 bars to x and then back to 2 bars without moving the handheld. Not sure if this is common for Verizon but this seems to happen where there is low signal quality. Otherwise, signal quality is pretty good.

My bet is that the radio is what is sucking down the battery on this device. The device seems to have quite a bit of radio activity when I am not using it. I just watch the arrows going up and down and I am not receiving any e-mails. When the arrows start going, the device has noticable lag. This is my first CDMA device since I tested a 7750 about 2 years ago and I remember that device was PAINFULLY slow.

sounds awfullt familiar to the problems the 7130e had when it was first released. Took several months and some firware upgrades but they seemed to have worked it out. The processor issue is beyond comprehention for me as weel as the rest of you, i am sure, not sure what the plan was on that but maybe it will opnly be a mariginal difference. As far as GSM goes, as i stated earlier i travel a fair amount for work and have the both gsm and cdma and all the mahor cities i travel to as well some off track places, my verizon phone wins hands down. I'm talking vegas, ny, miami, dallas, san diego, etc....

new device, old processor? how can they do that!

easy....they don't care and hope you don't notice. verizon is now 10 steps behind. the pearl is on the blackberry website with an actual official release date which is sooner than the projected release of the 8703.

No word on a date, but the 8703e is OFFICIALLY on the RIM website. look at the 8700 series and watch the .gif cycle through!!!!!

Research In Motion

Mike

CONFIRMED!

Im not going to lie and make believe I know ANYTHING about processors, but will a joe schmoe like myself notice any difference, having moved from a PPC?

Just called Verizon (*611). The only thing I got was "Coming Soon". He said that means within 30 days...SHOCKER!

so whose up for calling Verizon and asking them when they plan on getting the Pearl?????

The MSM6500 is actually referring to the Qualcomm CDMA chipset radio/modem and NOT the CPU.

well, that certainly is very refreshing..

MSM6500 Chipset Solution

Yes it is....my fault in not understanding the chipset versus the cpu.

So, what is the cpu for the two devices?

You just want to feel better about making an upgrade that the $350 that your spending that your getting allot for it.