Regular readers know that while I've been a longtime Treo user for Windows Mobile capability, I've also done a lot of testing of Nokia N-series phones in the past few months. On Saturdy, I replaced my personal Treo 700W with a new Blackberry 8830 World Edition.



First off, I'm not new to Blackberry. While I haven't talked about it a lot, I've also carried a Blackberry 8703 for quite a while. It's my third Blackberry, so this new one is #4.

I'm not using it in the BES environment as an enterprise solution. For me, it's my personal cell phone.

Here are some points of interest.

It doesn't have WiFi, so there's no real VoIP client. Not really, but I'll elaborate. One of the reasons I chose the 8830 is it's ready to go on EVDO Rev A, the new high-speed broadband that Verizon is rolling out. Rev A isn't in my area yet, but this devices supports it, along with full DUN tethering.

There is a Gtalk client and IM+ for Skype which I've installed. They seem to work fine for IM, and I'll be intrigued to se how either or both might support VoIP in an EVDO Rev A footprint. I'm alos watching to see how they handle battery life, as both are pretty active on the data connection. Blackberries have fantastic battery life as a rule, but a constant data drain may have an impact. I'll see how that goes.

I also wanted to test out iotum's Talk-Now presence and availability solution. Again, it draws heavily on the data connecton, and may have an impact on battery, especially with the other programs running concurrently.

I spent some time this weekend getting it set up for use and installing these programs. Now I'm all locked and loaded. I'm still searching for a good screenshot capturing tool, but a friend has one and is going to send me a link later today.

My plan is to test, write-up and share some of these unified communications tools just like I have the Nokia-based solutions.


Technorati Tags: Blackberry 8830 World Edition, Skyppe, IM+, Gtalk, iotum, Talk-Now, mobility, unified communications, presence