[James Bond 007]

I'm going to buy one of these models and would like some pros and cons about them. So far my research is telling me that the 7780 has a better screen/backlight, but is a little bigger and uses a little more power. Is this the ONLY thing that would seperate these two models.

7290 hasn't been released just rumored but I understand it will have a few nice upgrades which would be...same screen/backlight as the 77xx model but the size of the 72xx model, Bluetooth, 4.0 software, HTML viewing, and 32mg of ram.

All that being said, my understanding is the improved backlight on the 77xx model really only helps for outside viewing. Is have 16 mg of memory a problem? Finally can you upgrade all the firmware to the new 4.0 when it is released?

I don't mind waiting for the 7290, hopefully it will come to ATT but I heard it will go to Cingular first. I don't have Cingular in Colorado and soon ATT and Cingular will be one. I guessing the price of the 7290 is going to be on the VERY HIGH side.......$500+

I'm just wondering if these improvements are large enough that every 72xx and 77xx owner will throw their unit away to buy a new 7290.

Considering that this would be my first BB I'm leaning towards the 7280 if I can upgrade to the 4.0 firmware. My thought is try it out, use it, and if I love it like everyone else than this time next year RIM will have much cooler models. Mark if you could pick which model would you get? Thanks in advance,

CJ

[acnst]

Upgrading 7280 to version 4 should be no problem. There are rumours on the net (other BB forums) that the 7290 will not be running version 4 when it is released, it will be running version 3.8 like the new 7100T/7100V. If you do not need bluetooth and the more of RAM, than you should get the 7280. Else wait for the 7290. For daily usage I think the different displays shouldn't matter, that's mho. I have a 7230 and a 7730 and I am able to compare both displays.

[Mark Rejhon]

Actually, the 7290 also has a brighter backlight (like the 77XX series) for those who prefer that;

Also, the extra memory, including 32MB Flash, makes a speed difference --

[Skive]

Realistically, you have to ask yourself what features will be most important to you now and over the next year (2 years?) of your contract, personally I don't use a bluetooth headset and didn't find the backlight a problem so that would tend to imply the 7290 wasn't for me, but due to the amount of travelling and email i have, the quadband and more memory make it the ideal device for me.

[Mark Rejhon]

That's very true. The quadband is a deal-sealer for many.

[guinda35]

Originally Posted by Mark Rejhon

Actually, the 7290 also has a brighter backlight (like the 77XX series) for those who prefer that;

Also, the extra memory, including 32MB Flash, makes a speed difference --

Could you estimate the speed difference in web browsing as a result of the extra memory on the 7290? Do you know or expect that it will be appreciable?

[Skive]

Unless you are comparing it with a 7230 that is almost out of memory then the speed increase will be negligble.

[Mark Rejhon]

Nobody knows yet, because:

- Flash ROM access patterns. It is known BlackBerries slow down greatly as amount of memory gets to be very slow...until they sieze up and sometimes automatically reboot themselves (newer versions of the stable BlackBerryOS helps in some respects, especially later versions of 3.7.1.XXX).

- Not sure if the CPU clock are different in the 7290 .... This can have a major effect if they have ramped up the CPU speed slightly.

- Don't know if they are using more SRAM in the 7290 (used as program execution memory, as a cache for flash ROM read/writes, etc). This will have a major impact.

- Speed of Flash ROM is unknown. Often doubling Flash ROM can be accompanied by speed improvements.

A related note: According to tests I've seen on current USB memory key, speeds can vary by over 1000% between different flash ROM chips and configurations depending on types of tests (short bursts of data, fully streaming data, etc). For example, my USB2 memory key is 10-20 times faster than my USB memory key. But the slower USB2 memory keys are only slightly faster than the USB memory key. I remember reading one brand went only 2 megabytes per second, the fastest brand blew past 14 megabytes per second! That's full bytes, as in 8 bits per byte. (Mine is 7 megabytes per second). I think it may have been Tomshardware or Anandtech, but it was startling. Copying Windows XP Service Pack 2 (262MB) to a USB2 memory key in less than 20 seconds :D