New Bluetooth phone - Blackberry 7100t

Just had mine delivered today, battery charging and I cant wait. Looks very cool.

 

Be aware that the Blackberry has an additional monthly charge.

Looking at the 7100, the monthly cost was about $20 more
than a normal cell phone.

It will be worth the cost to many, but it was more than I could
justify to get EMail.

Actual Blackberry owners feel free to correct me on the cost...
I was only a potential buyer.

I wound up buying a Nokia 6230 - because it is bluetooth and does
what I want - and a SE610 - because it is bluetooth and free.
These were ordered and activated on T-Mobile from MobileBee.
Providers don't carry the 6230.

Should arrive Friday.

Look beyond your local provider for cool phones - the SE S710a and K700i
are also available.

Robert

 

I have the NOKIA 6820 phone and the bluetooth works fine with the Prius. However, I haven't figured out how to put its address/phone book into the Prius. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

 

Just bought the 7100t

All features working EXCEPT phone book upload. Anyone have a fix??

I'm so wanting to ditch my Nokia 3650...

BTW, audio quality on the 7100t seems superior to both Nokia and SE 616!

-Brad

 

David Pogue had an article in the Sept 30 NY Times that explains about Verizon's disabling of the Bluetooth phone book sync feature. His article reports that the Blackberry 7100t from T-Mobile has a similar limitation.

The article says:
This isn't the first time we've seen product features compromised in the name of copy protection, but it may be the first time it's hit cellphones. (Unfortunately, it seems to be a trend; the Bluetooth of the new BlackBerry 7100 from T-Mobile is disabled in the same ways. "There are two main reasons that drove our decision. First, our engineers design our products with tight security in mind," a spokesman told me, not entirely convincingly. "Second, we try to avoid the tradeoffs that result from cramming unnecessary features into our product.")

Here's a link to the Pogue article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/technolo...print&position=

Can't confirm if this is true (don't have a 7100t), but I wanted to share what I found while searching for an answer.

Has anyone been able to get address book uploading to work with the 7100t?

 

Thanks glkatz,

interesting...

Looks like I'll be returning the 7100t to T-Mobile if I don't get a good reply to the email I set to their support team.

I don't have ANY T-Mobile coverage within a 1/4 mile radius of my house, it turns out - which is totally unacceptable. I live in the DC 'burbs - what is up with that?!

I must say the phone is brilliant, though. I'd highly recommend it if coverage works for you can live without the "upload phonebook" feature.

-Brad

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bradp\";p=\"44950)</div>

I don't know about down there, but up here T-Mobile is notorious for having really a really good signal in the few areas that they have coverage. Make of that what you will.

If T-Mob doesn't work out, I would suggest you check out Cingular. They have a wide variety of uncrippled bluetooth phones, and their coverage is much wider than Verizon.

 

Re: Please update your experience with the Blackberry 7100t

I'm thinking about picking one of these up (they've extended the rebate thru the end of the year)...if anyone has any further comments about them, please post away!

Rob

 

I have the Blackberry 7100t, I am mostly happy with it, yes, you cannot transfer the phone book to the PRIUS, I can live without that. It connects very quickly, the Blutooth is great, and, the 7100t can also be used as a wireless modem on your notebook PC (only through the USB cable, not BlueTooth). The built in spearkphone in the phone also works well, ans is handy when you are not in the car. All in all I am much, MUCH happier with this phone than I am with the old buggy Sprint T608. Anyone want a T608, cheap? I also have a new one that I bought as a backup.. a lot of good thats going to do me..

Mitch

 

Cool. Mitch, don't laugh ... keep your t608 as a way to maintain the Prius phone book. It's pretty conveninet having one touch dial with labels you can read while in motion, and you can do that with the t608 even if the phone service is off, of course.

 

I picked up my new #6 Prius Saturday, and today at lunch spent a minute trying to connect my 7100T to it...it seemed to go fine. I did try to upload the phone book, and it (the MFD) sort of froze up on the screen that instructed me to tell the phone to send the phone book data over...the Cancel button was grayed out, so I just jumped out of that screen back to the map. When I hit the phone key on the steering wheel, I got a message saying that the phone book was uploading, so I couldn't place a call or anything. That problem seemed to resolve itself once I parked the car and shut it off.

When I restarted the car and took off, after a few minutes of driving, I got the message on the MFD: "bluetooth connections unsuccessful." When I got back in to work and looked at my 7100t, it had a message on its screen asking me if I wanted to accept a Bluetooth connection.

Doesn't the connection take place automatically each time you drive the car, after the initial setup? Anyone know if I'm doing something wrong?

thanks
rob

 

Check the settings on the phone. There should be an option to have it automatically accept the Bluetooth connection.

 

Couldn't find that, just enable/disable bluetooth. In the device properties, I did change an option called "trusted" from no to yes. Next time I got in my car, it worked...don't know if that had anything to do with it.

In the bluetooth options menu, for device name: blackberry 7100, it gives the option of Discoverable: yes or no. Anyone know what that means?

rob

 

Trusted means other devices are allowed to connect without prompting you for approval. You'd probably want your Prius to be a trusted device.

Discoverable means other bluetooth devices can see you (but not connect to you, that requires prompting).

 

Sadly, the Bluetooth transfer of the address book does not exist for the 7100. I looked around for a solution to this, but have been unsuccessful so far. I've asked RIM tech support about this and the Bluetooth hardware is there, but there is just no software. RIM may not intend to add it at all since keeping to just Bluetooth handset profile keeps the 7100 immune to Bluejacking.

If anyone is able and willing, it may be possible to write the Bluetooth object push profile necessary to enable Bluetooth address book transfer on the 7100. RIM has a free SDK and a BlackBerry device simulator.

 

$20 for a PDA is cheap. verizon charges 44.99 for unlimited internet

 

I have a Blackberry that is Bluetooth enabled. I had no trouble paring it with the Prius Bluetooth. But... when I make a call or a call comes in the audio on my end is great, but every caller I have spoken to has said that my words are so broken they have trouble understanding. When I use just the phone, the sound is fine. Does anyone have a suggestion to fix this problem?

jim