RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition Smartphone Our rating:

The Blackberry 8830, although it looks to be a basic and even to some a boring and bulky PDA/Smartphone compared to others of its kind (and even its Blackberry siblings such as the popular and snazzy Pearl, Storm and Curve), the 8830 is set apart from the others by being both a CDMA and GSM phone. This phone is marketed especially for International businessmen and world-travelers who would benefit most from the network interchangeability. For those Sprint/Nextel and Verizon users who grit their teeth when they want to keep their phone when they change networks, or just switch out their sim card when they travel somewhere overseas with only GSM networks, the 8830 comes to the rescue. With both a CDMA function and a GSM sim-card slot, you get the best of both worlds. For the world-traveler who uses a CDMA network Smartphone, this Blackberry is a lifesaver and relieves a lot of hassle they may have had in the past when it comes to mobile networks and phones. It’s easy to use the World Edition 8830 overseas. Simply activate Sprint/Verizon World Service (by calling Sprint or Verizon, it’s free) and it will work in both CDMA and GSM countries (although the roaming fees are pretty hefty). For those who want to use a local sim-card, just switch out the Sprint or Verizon card for a local network’s card.

The Sprint version of the 8830 lacks a camera, which is a downside and a disappointment since Blackberry tends to stay on the cutting edge, but I suppose most world-traveling businessmen (who this phone is marketed for) don’t need a camera-phone to snap pictures while on a meeting in Beijing. And even though it might not have a camera, you can still fit a lot of media on the 8830 with the memory card option and SDHC capability. The audio isn’t the loudest, but still fairly good for a phone, and the video quality is exceptional. And, since the screen is 2.5 inches, you won’t be squinting your eyes nearly as much as with other, smaller phones. Of course, the 8830 also comes with the mobile internet option and blackberry email, which is outstanding and quite simple to use if you have a data package.

Although the transition to blackberry from another phone, Smartphone or PDA can take a bit of getting used to, since its menu can tend to be a bit complex and difficult to navigate, the convenient “help” functions and online guides make it clear to even the least tech-savvy folks. For those already familiar with blackberries, the 8830 features the trademark trackball as well as blackberry maps, GPS, browser, email, MMS, SMS, wireless e-mail, organizer, and corporate data access. The price is quite fair when you buy it with a new plan or decide to upgrade. Otherwise it retails around $400-600, still a fair price given the features of this one-of-a-kind PDA phone.

Samsung r400 Slider Phone Our Rating:

After some very bad luck with the Kyocera Strobe, our lead reviewer Chris decided to move on to a Samsung, thinking He would be much more impressed.  Unfortunately, that was far from being the case.  He concluded that while Samsung does have some very nice phones currently on the market, this is definitely one to steer clear of.  Here’s what he had to say:

First of all, one of my biggest annoyances of cell phones was true of this phone as well – the “silent” mode is not 100% silent.  When the battery gets low on this phone, even if you’ve got the volume turned off, it’s going to beep at you.  Certainly not the way I want to find out when I’m in the middle of a meeting.

Actually, a lot of the software on this phone was very unimpressive.  There’s no way to change how the slider works, so it will always hang up on your call when you close it, even if you don’t want it to.  The ringer doesn’t turn on automatically when you plug the phone in to charge, and the volume controls in general are very confusing.

The phone seems to be cheaply made as well.  The slider seems weak and flimsy when compared to other phones on the market.  The battery does not hold a very long charge either.  Also, on the original as well as a warranty replacement of this phone, the signal seems to run into lot of dead zones, even though it is not generally weak.  Perhaps there is some sort of problem with the antenna getting interference.

At any rate, if you’re in the market for a slider phone, you’re probably going to want to keep looking.  This is yet another phone that is definitely not getting raves from us.

Kyocera Strobe Our Rating:

This entry was edited on June 16, 2008 after severe problems with our model as well as several warranty replacements.  Its rating was also significantly reduced.  At this point, we highly do not recommend this phone.

At first glance, the Strobe appears to be just an abnormally thick candy bar phone.  At second glance, this phone appears to make a turn for the better, turning out to be quite a pleasant surprise while opening up to reveal a full-size QWERTY-style keyboard.  Additional features like email and web compatibility make this a would-be nice entry level business phone without the cost of an expensive PDA or smartphone.  It would work great for anyone who does a lot of typing, via text, email, or instant messaging.

However, once you start using the phone and realize that it’s going to reset on you, constantly glitch up, and delete all incoming text messages once your inbox is full, regardless of if you tell it to clear out old messages to make space, you start to become a bit less impressed.

That’s pretty disappointing news, especially when one thing we liked about this phone is that when it’s placed in silent mode, nothing can cause it to make a sound.  Even if the battery goes low or you receive an instant message from a buddy in the middle of a meeting, you can be confident that you won’t be interrupting your boss in the middle of his presentation.  We’ve found this to not be the case with other phones, including Motorolla and Samsung phones, and were actually excited at first that this phone really is silent when it’s supposed to be.  Too bad just about everything else about it sucks…

The Strobe was far from flawless.  There were a few minor quirks with this phone… occasionally things got a bit glitchy, and some of the menus were not set up as logically as we thought they could have been.  Of course, sometimes the poor phone would just get so confused that it would completely reset, even right while trying to make or receive a call.  On top of all that, the camera was about the worst quality we’ve ever seen.

Overall, we were very unimpressed with the Kyocera Strobe, and are really hoping to see some seriously better products from Kyocera in the future.  As for the Strobe, we give it 2 stars (and barely, too) since it certainly is not worth the headache.  However, we were impressed by the design and hope to see a phone with the same features, full-size keyboard, and silent mode that’s actually silent.

Would we recommend that you get one?  Definitely not.  But it’s certainly up to you.  Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.