[DougFNJ]

I can not believe the durability of the 7520 made for occasionally ignorant people like myself. Last week Im just throwing a football around, forgot to put the Blackberry in the car, 1 good hard throw and the BB with the holster goes flying off nice and hard fall on to the concrete....I carefully remove the device from the holster fearing the worst.....nothing, slight scratches on the holster....relief

Last night, some buddies and I go down to AC, walking through the outside parking lot at Bally's out of nowhere, the 7520 FALLS out of the holster, I guess the way I was seated in the car on the way down it was swiveled upside down without my realizing. It almost happened in slow motion, under my fleece shirt it just falls out on to the parking lot concrete face down! Picking it up looking at it, slight scratches on the metal around the screen, and a small scratch below the keyboard...everything else was perfect. I definitely have to be more careful, but at the same time, I am completely impressed at how well it handles 2 hard falls on to concrete.

Any similar stories? Or did I just luck out BIG TIME?

[jdcl1975]

Have had just about the same experiences with my 7520 and it proves to be extremely durable.

[ELA]

Just got my first BB (Verizon) -- 7250. Not sure what I am going to do about a case, holster, or some type of something so I can carry this around. I say this because I have learned one thing -- from carrying my cell phone, Palm Pilot, etc. -- that the cases I have had are not made for people who are NOT thin! LOL.

Everytime I sit down, turn, get up, move, etc. -- these things just swivel, turn, pop out, whatever.

Tough maintenance.

Eric

[dpeters11]

Generally Blackberry devices are known for their durability. That's one of the reasons we like them over other options like the Treo. Those tend to break when dropped.

[tregrad]

there is a thread deticated to this very topic

http://www.blackberryforums.com/show...ighlight=abuse

[DougFNJ]

Wow, that is a great thread.......and I thought my 2 drops were abusive

[Mark Rejhon]

Yeah - if one want a good compromise of a PDA that's also a cellphone and really great email device -- and want something almost military spec WITHOUT looking like ugly army green or UPS brown, BlackBerry is the device to get.

Model 7230 and 7280 are the most rugged, the 7510/7100 are much more fragile, the 7520 is better. (But 7520 isn't even the most ruggedized model).

9 feet drop to concrete - survived.
Falls down 1 storey of concrete stairs - survived.
1 week outdoors on the curbside - survived.

Thread:
The "BlackBerry Abuse" Thread:
Amazing BlackBerry Survival Feats Here

The good news is that the 8700 is starting to look good; at the moment, nobody on BlackBerryForums has yet broken an 8700 yet by dropping it from 3 or 4 feet high yet:

Thread:
Well, it happened. I dropped my 8700
[And it survived!]

Be warned that some models are more fragile than others. I have heard of more people breaking their 7290's than 7230's and 7280's. The 7100 is also reported more fragile, but many of them have survived. And the antenna on 7510's were fragile, so they got strengthened in the 7520's which survives abuse much better. The glass screens on BlackBerries are shock mounted, so as long as nothing strikes the screen directly (obtrusions, etc), the BlackBerry is likely to survive regular drops to concrete from holster height. On the 8700, the screen is now behind plastic.

Looks are really deceiving -- the plastic casing of a BlackBerry is a very good shock absorber. Not as sexy as a metal cellphone but it pays for itself if you have a few broken cellphones, Treo's or other devices you're tired of breaking from drops.

[southwestcomm]

While the antenna on 7510/7520 may be fragile they are easy to replace since they screw in/out.

[ryandle]

No so with mine. It fell about 3 feet and landed on ceramic tile. Now it just keeps trying to power up, fails, then trys again.

[BaronVonBB]

I must agree heartily on the 7520's durability. I work for a large construction/homebuilding company who has deployed about 300+ of these devices in the past 18 months. Of course there are always going to be problems, such as the occassionally defective device or a drop that the poor thing just can't survive!

For the most part though, even our construction supervisors have very few problems with their 7520's. Unfortunately they are not nearly so positive about the quality of the Sprint/Nextel service, which seems to be poor almost everywhere we use them. Given the fact that the construction industry as a whole uses the Nextel direct connect feature quite extensively, this device was just a natural fit for most of our users.

[ldabadie]

I have had 4 BB's in my day since the original 850 over 6yrs ago. All have been extremely durable and I have dropped them and dropped them (never on purpose) and they have always bounced back.

I dropped my 7510 last week on the corner and when it hit the ground I just knew it wouldn't bounce back. It didn't.

Now I get random resets and error messages galore.

Moral of the story: I used to work for BB and I know they pride themselves on durability and they even drop test the devices in manufacturing. Like anything they are pieces of technology and too many drops or a drop in the wrong way can end it.

Drop #3958 killed mine. Play hard but be careful.