MOBILE PHONE REVIEW

RIM BlackBerry 7230 review

8.3

Editors' Rating

Design		9.0
Features		8.0
Performance		8.0

David Carnoy CNET

Published: 02 Feb 2004

Research in Motion's (RIM) early attempts at mating its popular wireless email device/handheld with a mobile phone didn't turn out as well as the company had hoped. But the BlackBerry 7230, RIM's first colour-screen model, is a different story. Offered by T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2 in the UK for around £200 (inc. VAT), the 7230 combines a GSM/GPRS world phone, a handheld and wireless email capabilities in a slim, 136g unit that doesn't require an earbud to talk on.

Design

Some jokingly refer to the 7230 as a 'BlueBerry' rather than a BlackBerry because of its blue casing. At 7.4cm by 11.3cm by 2cm, the unit is compact for a smartphone -- male buyers will probably wear it clipped to their belts using the included swivelling holster.

The high-resolution 240-by-160-pixel colour display supports 65,536 colours. Although not as bright (even with the backlight on) as the displays found on Pocket PCs or Palms, the screen is readable and is made for viewing in direct sunlight. As for the keys, they're reasonably large and raised, making them quite tactile. In fact, the 7230's mini-keyboard is among the best available.

The first thing you'll notice when you go to dial a number manually is that RIM has created a traditional number dial pad over the keys on the left side of the keyboard. When inputting numbers as part of a text message, you may be initially thrown off by the layout. However, the arrangement is essential if you want to dial numbers on the 7230 as you would with a traditional phone.

As with RIM's earlier combo units, you can plug in the bundled headset to make a call, but this model also features a built-in earpiece and microphone. It's not the most comfortable implementation, but it's quite usable as a phone as well as a wireless email device and handheld.

Along with the familiar scroll wheel and the Back button (which you press to end a call) on the right side of the unit, you'll find a port for a USB cable/charger on the left side. On top, there's a quick-launch button for phone mode, plus an infrared port. The removable Li-ion battery can be replaced.

Features

Although it has no SD (Secure Digital) card expansion slot, this model ships with a healthy 16MB of internal flash memory and 2MB of SRAM. BlackBerrys are known for their email prowess, and the 7230, which supports world roaming (GSM 900/1800/1900 plus GPRS) with the appropriate SIM card, worked well in this department and easily synchronised with Microsoft Outlook on our desktop computer. Lotus Notes is also supported.

If you don't work for a company that has BlackBerry Enterprise Server installed on its servers, you can opt for BlackBerry Web Client, which allows you to have email messages wirelessly forwarded to your 7230 from up to 10 POP3 email accounts. Setup is fairly simple and can be done on the Web or via a wireless Web connection on the device in a matter of minutes.

While the enterprise version offers real-time email delivery and wireless calendar syncing (a secretary can wirelessly update an appointment from the office), the email pushed to the 7230 by Web Client has about a 15-minute delay. And Web Client now offers some wireless syncing; if you delete email on the 7230, it will also be deleted on your desktop. Previously, this feature was available to corporate customers only.

The BlackBerry's address and calendar applications aren't quite as snazzy as a Pocket PC's or Palm's, but most users will be pleased with the device's handheld side. Other core electronic organiser applications include a task manager, a memo pad, a calculator and an alarm. The BrickBreaker game comes preinstalled, and you can add third-party applications just like you would with a Palm or a Pocket PC.

With J2ME on-board, RIM is touting the BlackBerry's expansion into the Java realm, which is a plus. You can now open a wide variety of email attachments -- most importantly, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, as well as Adobe PDFs -- and view them on the device. Unfortunately, you can't edit a Word or Excel file, save it and send it back to a colleague. This is a read-only situation.

Like other BlackBerrys, the 7230 is lacking in the multimedia department, but that's not a sin, especially since this is a business-oriented device. However, in an ideal world, we would like to have seen a speakerphone and Bluetooth support for wireless headsets.

All the phone basics are here, including a robust call history, the ability to dial contact numbers directly from the address book, two-way SMS messaging, and a vibrating ringer option. Phone and handheld elements are well integrated. A Web browser is on-board, although we mostly used T-Mobile's T-Zones text-only WAP site to check the latest news and sports scores.

Performance

You'd expect a colour screen to have a serious impact on battery life, but the 7230's display is designed to use the backlight sparingly; you'll need to activate it in only a dimly lit environment or at night. As a result, you can expect decent battery life that's on a par with that of the most energy-efficient smartphones currently available. RIM says you can get up to four hours of talk time and 10 days of standby time. In our tests, we hit the talk-time number and managed to go a full week on standby. With normal use, however, you should expect to recharge after every third day, or every two days to be on the safe side.

Using T-Mobile's GSM/GPRS service, we had a generally good experience. Occasionally, we lost the sweet spot of the speaker on our ear and had to adjust the phone accordingly. But the BlackBerry was fairly loud, and we appreciated that we could raise and lower the volume using the scroll wheel in the middle of a call. On their end, callers said we sounded clear with no static. In noisier environments, it helps to use a headset, but it's not essential.