Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15024 in Cell Phone Accessories
• Color: Blue
• Brand: BlackBerry
• Model: 7290

Features

• Email, phone, browser, SMS, browser and organizer in a single handheld
• Quad-band 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS compatibility for international roaming
• Bluetooth wireless technology
• Bright, backlit 240x160 display supporting over 65,000 colors
• Easy-to-use navigation trackwheel and intuitive menu interface

Amazon.com Product Description
This update to the tried and true BlackBerry 7200 Series adds support for Bluetooth, a brighter display, quad-band GSM, and 32 MB of internal memory. This integrated phone, e-mail client (with support for corporate e-mail servers), organizer, and Web browser is the ultimate weapon for mobile professionals.

Take a closer look at the BlackBerry 7290 handheld's functions. You can also view an interactive demo.

Design
The BlackBerry 7290 follows the standard BlackBerry form factor-- a large 240 x 160 color screen placed above a QWERTY keyboard. The screen offers plenty of real estate to view your e-mails, Web browser content, messaging sessions, and attachments. The popular BlackBerry user interface is here, too, which makes it easy to navigate the handheld's functions. A trackwheel is located on the right side of the unit for quick scrolling through menus and e-mails. There's also a standard 2.5mm headset jack that can be used with the included headset. A removable lithium-ion battery is housed in the rear of the handheld.

Calling Features
Many of the calling capabilities folks have come to expect in a wireless phone are present in the BlackBerry 7290. The unit's Bluetooth capability means you can use a wireless headset with the phone for hands-free calling. A vibrating alert, speed dial, and a contacts list/address book (limited only by the unit's 32 MB of internal memory) are also included.

Messaging, Internet, and Tools
The BlackBerry 7290 delivers the legendary BlackBerry e-mail experience. With BlackBerry service plans from Cingular, you can receive e-mails instantaneously from up to 10 e-mail accounts (personal and enterprise). With BlackBerry push technology, you don't need to retrieve your e-mail all at once. BlackBerry devices are designed to remain on and continuously connected to the wireless network, allowing you to be discreetly notified as new e-mail arrives. Support is also built in for viewing e-mail attachments (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, and PDF formats).

If your company has a BlackBerry Enterprise Server installed, you can take advantage of the power of wireless calendar synchronization. Your calendar events are exchanged wirelessly and automatically so that your desktop calendar and BlackBerry handheld calendar are synchronized. All your Outlook meeting requests, changes, and updates are instantaneously synchronized with your desktop. Make meeting requests, invite new attendees, and more, all on your BlackBerry 7290. Users without BlackBerry Enterprise Server support can manually sync with their desktop calendars and contacts via Bluetooth or USB by using the included BlackBerry Desktop Software.

Use the BlackBerry 7290's Web browser to access the Internet from the palm of your hand. Browse Web sites, get up-to-date stock quotes, read the latest news, check weather reports, and do even more. Wireless text messaging is also supported by the BlackBerry 7290.

The BlackBerry 7290 ships with a number of tools, including a calculator with a unit converter and a to-do list. The handheld's software is based on the Java platform, meaning Java-compatible games and applications can be added to the handheld.

Vital Statistics
The BlackBerry 7290 weighs 4.9 ounces and measures 4.5 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 4 hours of digital talk time, and up to 9 days of digital standby time. It runs on the 800/900/1800/1900 GSM/GPRS frequencies. The handheld comes with a one year limited warranty.

What's in the Box
BlackBerry 7290 handheld, travel charger, two USB cables, battery, holster, hands-free headset, SIM card, BlackBerry Desktop Software.

Customer Reviews

Works great with my corporate enterprise service
I have had no problems. Works great with my corporate "enterprise server". If your company supports this device for email, you will love it. I travel quite a bit and I now leave my laptop at home for daytrips (I bring my PPT presentations on a USB drive). I recommend the phone service as part of it. My co-workers had a separate phone and then switched to all on the BBerry (both phone and email)...it was more conveniant and he looked like a dork with two devices on his belt!

Using the phone is not as slick as a regular cell phone, but if you use your phone for 90% business like I do, the benefits od the enterprise server outweighs the negatives (e.g. being able to look up internal company numbers wirelessly through the enterprise server).

Motorola Bluetooth headset works well with this unit.

Cingular works fine for me (no worse than any other provider). I am in the Chicago area.

I haven't figured out how to add a separate instance of my personal email and contacts on the unit. I don't want to intermix them with my work contacts/email. I am pretty sure there is a way to accomplisg this, but I have not had the time to work through it.

I'm sold on this unit.

Great alternative to laptop while travelling, as a business tool
This is my second blackberry. This model is significantly better than the previous model. It has a much brighter screen, a lighted keypad, bluetooth, improved firmware etc. The best thing about blackberries is BES software that provides seamless connectivity to the my corporate Microsft Exchange based outlook software. It provides bi-directional updates between Exchange and the blackberry. No need to do explicit syncing anymore. Its ability to view email attachments is very useful. One essential thing that is missing is a speakerphone. While travelling, this is indispensible as I can check all the emails, without having to boot up my laptop and finding a wi-fi hotspot. Works fine in europe and asia. Other things I wish they add are an mp3 player, a mpeg-4 video player, a gps device and a wifi voip phone. Since the technology to do this already exists, hopefully the next version of blackberry would fill these holes. I need to reduce the number of tech gadgets I carry around.

Great phone, lousy service
This is a great phone, if your primary use is email; If you really need voice service, and only occasional email, consider the Audiovox SMT5600 instead. Regardless, I hope you have more luck with Cingular than I did. There's simply not enough time or room to recout my problems with Cingular but I'll provide a brief recap.

I have service with Cingular and with AT&T. The problems began when I tried to merge my two services into one account (Cingular did acquire AT&T, right?), upgrade my service plan, and upgrade the AT&T phone. Simple enough, right? Wrong.

After (literally) four visits to the store, 10+ phone calls (and speaking with over 30+ people), and completing several forms on the web I thought I had finally solved the problem and everything was fine. THEN my phone showed up ... it was the wrong one. Attempts to get the problems resolved on the phone failed (we can't do that here), attempts to return it to the store failed (that was sent to you by our phone sales group, you can't return it here), and a final desperate attempt to resolve it through Cingular's Office of the CEO was meet by "you shouldn't have tried to transfer your service from AT&T to Cingular" (i.e. it's your fault) and "you're trying to order the most expensive phone we have, what do you expect us to do, give you a free one?" (i.e. you're trying to cheat us).

My experiences can basically be catagorized in the following fashion:
* You're an AT&T customer, you'll need to call Cingular for that.
* You're a Cingular customer, you'll need to call AT&T for that.
* You're a corporate customer, we're the retail group. You'll need to call business services for that.
* You did that over the phone, you'll need to take up that problem with telesales.
* You did that in the store, you'll need to take up that problem with them.
* That can't be done over the web.
* I don't know how to do that.

I think the crowning touch however, was the retail store that refused to sell me the phone because my account is tagged as a "sponsored" account that gets an equipment discount. The manager wanted to sell it to someone who would pay full price!

Good luck!

...msg