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New Bluetooth phone - Blackberry 7100t

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Audio and Electronics' started by yellowhats, Oct 3, 2004.

  1. yellowhats

    yellowhats New Member

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    When my Smartphone died last week, I started researching optiong for my next phone, and being a Verizon customer I was pretty enthused to see they finally had a BT capable phone - the V710.

    Thanks to all of you who contribute to this site, I was quickly clued in to the fact that Verizon has, for whatever reason, diabled some of the BT functionality on the phone - resulting in no ability to import the phonebook on your phone into the car, and no incoming ring in the car or on the phone when in BT mode. I appreciate all the information we share on this site, because it saved me a huge disappointment had I rushed out to get that phone.

    Instead I started expanding my thinking, and decided that if I could find a phone with another provider that would have what I need, I would consider paying the contract termination fee with Verizon.

    What I found was the BLACKBERRY 7100t a relatively new phone that is equipped with BT AND has traditional Blackberry email capabilities. This phone is a little different from the previous BB phones in that it has been slimmed down to the candy bar shape of classic phones, instead of the wide flat box that diminishes the BB appeal as a phone. The way BB accomplished this is by assigning two letters to each key, and developing an advanced software called SureType that intuits the word you are typing so you don't have to scroll back and forth between the letters to type. I was a little skeptical so I went to the store and tried it out. After a short learning curve, I was amazed at how well this software works.

    But on to what you really want to know about - the BT compatibility. I just paired the device with my car and made a few test calls. Worked great, including receiving a test call which rang on my phone but not in the car. I haven't tried to import an address book yet because I have to synch it with my Outlook at work, but I will report back on that next week.

    Using the chart info already set up in other posts (and I will cross post this to that thread for the convenience of site users):

    1-Set up difficulty. - EASY

    2-Speed connecting with car. - ABOUT 3 SECONDS

    3-Sound quality. - GOOD

    4-Transfer of phone book. - TBD

    5-Display of signal strength/roaming/caller id/etc. - DISPLAYS SIGNAL STRENGTH, SHOWS CALLER ID, DON'T KNOW ABOUT ROAMING YET

    6-Does the prius RING for incoming calls. - PRIUS DOES NOT RING, BUT PHONE RINGS

    7-Transfer from phone to car/car to phone on already established calls. - PHONE TO CAR AND CAR TO PHONE BOTH POSSIBLE THROUGH HANDSET - YOU CAN SWITCH BETWEEN HANDSET AND HANDSFREE DURING CALL

    I hope this is helpful to those of you who are shopping for a BT phone for your Prius, and I hope Verizon gets the message that they are losing customers to other providers by 1) disabling the very features that attracted people to their one BT phone and 2) being so far behind other carriers in terms of the BT functionality and options in their phone selection.
     
  2. Bill60546

    Bill60546 Member

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

    yellowhats New Member

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    I've had mine for almost a week now and the phone has exceeded my expectations. Hope you enjoy yours.
     
  4. rmm20

    rmm20 New Member

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    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
     
  5. mycounsel

    mycounsel New Member

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    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?
     
  6. bradp

    bradp New Member

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    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
     
  7. glkatz

    glkatz New Member

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    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?
     
  8. bradp

    bradp New Member

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    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
     
  9. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    <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.
     
  10. onerpm

    onerpm New Member

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    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
     
  11. mitch672

    mitch672 Technology Geek

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    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
     
  12. delrey

    delrey Member

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    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.

     
  13. onerpm

    onerpm New Member

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    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
     
  14. IsrAmeriPrius

    IsrAmeriPrius Progressive Member

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

    onerpm New Member

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    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
     
  16. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    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).
     
  17. HTMLSpinnr

    HTMLSpinnr Super Moderator
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    I'm strongly considering this phone - any updates on the address book?

    I've got a 3650 as well. I could keep it for addy book management, but it seems a pain. I need the 7100 for work though as TMobile doesn't have unlimited text messaging for paging, and want access to corp. email
     
  18. ryogajyc

    ryogajyc Active Member

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    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.
     
  19. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    $20 for a PDA is cheap. verizon charges 44.99 for unlimited internet
     
  20. jriesz@frb.gov

    [email protected] New Member

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    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