Home > Consumer Reviews > BlackBerry 8820 Phone (AT&T)

I've been with AT&T for the past 5 years and I must say that I've never had a complaint in regards to their coverage in my metropolitan area (VA/DC/MD). I had an Audiovox SMT-5600 for the past two years and thought that it was time to upgrade, especially since I'm out of college and working in a company where Blackberries are utilized.

After some research and testing out the BB 8320 Curve from T-mobile, I decided to stick with AT&T and buy this 8820. I must say that call reception everywhere is superb, in most cases almost like a land line. This edition of Blackberry is really targeted more for business users than the casual consumer - AT&Ts BB 8310 would be a good fit if you seek a more robust offering of Instant Messaging applications.

My main reasoning to get this was emails - personal and work. Even though my company does have a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) that pushes emails out to all BB users, they only reimburse VPs and Directors for the data/email plan. AT&T has several Blackberry service plans. The highest being the BES plan that costs about $45/mth. Since it wasn't super critical to acquire 'push' email for me, I went with their Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) plan that costs $29/mth. This plan permits you to pull email from 10 ISP based email providers such as Gmail, Yahoo and even Hotmail. The good news is that I have found a way around to pull work email, even though I didn't go through their BES plan. All you need for setup is the availability of browser based email access. By this I mean Outlook Web Access (OWA) - you have to have access to a site like "https://mail.yourcompany.com/exchange". If you are able to check emails outside of your company through OWA (not VPN), then you will be able to sync with your BIS plan. Keep in mind that there is a lag of 5-10 minutes for emails to come through to your phone vs. the instant push that the BES plan affords you (outgoing emails though are instant). For me, 5 minutes is absolutely fine so I am real glad with what I have now. My other POP3 email accounts get pushed instantaneously.

The BB 8820 is Wi-Fi enabled so you are able to connect to any open/secure wireless access point to surf the net and/or use BB Messenger. Unfortunately the HTML browser supplied with this device is pretty poor, it looks more like WAP because most of the content is stripped out by Blackberry's proxy servers. I myself did download Opera Mini and use that occasionally to look up info while on the go - its fairly better than RIMs browser. I do also want to mention that since this is really targeted for business users, the availability of such IM Apps such as AIM, Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ etc. do not come installed with it - you can download Ramble IM and Gtalk seperately. It also does have GPS enabled so you can use this while driving - the service is provided by TeleNav and the monthly cost for unlimited usage is $10. I myself have not tried it yet. You also are able to play music and videos by expanding your memory with a separate microSD card. This is a quad band phone (850/900/1800/1900mhz) so you are able to use this overseas - just need to activate International calling before you leave.

I must say that the BB UI is well thought out, kind of like the Sidekick I had many years ago. It's very easy to navigate around the RIM O/S and customization is also great. The battery lasts for a good long time, even though I don't call alot but email more. The keyboard layout is also well designed as I've never had any issues in writing emails - getting to the point where I don't have to look at most of the keys in order to type.

A few minor issues that do bother me a bit is that reaction time is somewhat slow with this BB. When occasionally I attempt to scroll with the trackball it hangs for a second or less - this is a minor annoyance, but still an annoyance at that. Also one pretty big issue I noticed with PDAs/Blackberries is that the alphabet that is normally superimposed on regular phones is not present here. So if you happen to dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (free 411 folks), you really would need to know what numbers the letters 'GOOG' correspond to. I read that on the older BB 7000 series you could get around this issue by going to the address book and dialing from there - this is not an option here unfortunately. Also the phone itself is a bit bulky as I've noticed its weight in my pant pocket - maybe using the supplied holster would alleviate some of this. One other shortcoming is the lack of 3G (UMTS/HSDPA) connectivity as most PDAs these days have it - looks like RIM is avoiding this on all their models for some reason. Lastly, one major drawback on this phone is that while on a phone call, you are not able to send/receive email and if you happen to be surfing the net any incoming calls will direct to voicemail (though the new voicemail icon does appear). This restriction is due to AT&Ts EDGE/GPRS (2.5G) data infrastructure vs. their other PDA phones that are based on UMTS/HSDPA (3G). When and if Blackberries adopt the 3G standard, simultaneous voice/data exchange will be possible.

All in all I must say that I am very pleased with this phone - I surely would not choose any other phone/email device. I highly recommend this.

I've had the Blackberry 8820 now for a few weeks, and I have for the most part been very happy with it. The phone seems to be extremely well made, has a great keyboard and lots of features. The keyboard is easy to use. I type 3 paragraph e-mails easily with it, and it has a spell-checker that automatically fixes common capitalization problems and spelling mistakes, as well as prompting you about misspelled words when you start to send an e-mail.

As far as features go, these were the ones what pushed me towards this phone:
1) GPS: (not just aGPS, this is a fully functioning GPS device that when paired with free apps like aMaze, Google Maps, Blackberry maps allow you to see where you are, where you are going, how fast you are moving, and even give you voice-guided turn-by-turn directions).

2) Wi-Fi: If you have a wireless router or are near a hotspot, you can set up a connection profile and from then on you will be able to browse the internet at much quicker speeds. This is more noticeable when using Opera Mini than when using the built-in browser, since the BB browser works through a proxy that filters and converts the web pages for best viewing on a mobile phone, while Opera Mini displays the page as close to what you would see on a desktop as you can expect from a mobile phone.

3) Multimedia capabilities: The music player works about as well as I expected, and will keep playing while you go to other apps and do other things, which is a nice bonus. The video playing capabilities are a little limited in that you have to download the videos to the phone before you can play them, no streaming as far as I can tell. The picture viewer is great, I have replaced my photos in my wallet with my huge album on my phone!

The other things about the phone that I like/dislike:

Likes:
1) The interface is easy to learn and use
2) The address book is great!
3) The phone notifies you when you have a new e-mail with a blinking red light or 2 vibrations if you have it in the holster, sometimes before my e-mail on my pc even realizes there are new e-mails.
4) It does it's primary job of being a phone extremely well (dialing is quick and easy, and calls are clear as can be).
5) Battery life is great. Heavily using the browser, music player, google talk, etc. I can usually get through 2 full days before needing to charge again. When I just leave the phone on and use it on occasion, it seems to last forever.

Dislikes:
1) Missing out on 3g speeds, this hasn't been too big of an issue, but there are times when the EDGE network is just not as quick as I would like.
2) Lacking streaming video capability. If this were possible, the lack of 3g speeds would probably ruin it anyways, so it is probably for the best that it was not included.
3) Occasional loss of data connectivity. I haven't been able to figure out what causes this, but during the first week or 2 I had to power the phone off and back on to get the data working again. This hasn't been an issue lately, but it had me worried at first.

Overall, I am pretty happy with this phone and will be glad to keep it for the 2 years of contract I have signed up for. Though I didn't give it 5 stars because there are just a few things I would like added to it.

I used the Blackberry 8820 ("BB8820") for about the past month before replacing it with a Moto Q 9h.

The phone is definitely very solid and user-friendly, however, I am moving to an area with 3G speeds, and I could not stand the idea of having 3G all around me through the duration of a 2 year contract with limited EDGE speeds. This is a personal preference, but I will explain more below.

The BB8820 is very nicely tweaked for EDGE. This is great for people who live in areas that have EDGE only -- I live in one now, and the phone worked really well on the EDGE network to download e-mail and browse the web. It isn't lightening-fast, but it's a Smart phone on a wireless network, not a desktop with a dedicated T1. However, because the BB8820 is so well tweaked for EDGE, when you use the Wi-Fi capabilities, the device nowhere near uses the full download/upload capabilities offered by wireless high-speed. In fact, I found basically no noticeable difference when I was on Wi-Fi from when I was on EDGE in browsing the internet and non-email functions. With email, on Wi-Fi, you get the message sometimes faster than they'll arrive on your wifi-connected laptop's in box. Pretty slick, but not good enough for me given the surrounding circumstances. Also, the Moto Q9h, while on EDGE only, will get new e-mail messages much faster than the BB8820 -- literally, the BB8820 would take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes after my laptop to pickup a new email when on EDGE only, where the Q 9h will get it within 30 seconds. It's a huge difference.

The BB8820's interface is nice. It's easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to learn. The track-ball is well made and functions well for the most part. However, clicking with the track-ball can get very annoying sometimes as you will find the track-ball moving ever so slightly to the next-over Icon and then starting that application instead of the one you intended -- very annoying sometimes.

Also, the software has a tendency to hiccup; it doesn't necessarily slow down altogether, it just sticks in certain places when you're trying to move from icon to icon and from program to program, even after you have just done a reset and have nothing open.

And on that note, resetting the phone takes WAY too long, and you have to reset the BB8820 somewhat frequently, maybe once a day. It literally probably takes a full 2 minutes from shut down to start up to just power down and start back up, it's really ridiculous. Often, you find yourself having to reset because the phone gets "nuked." An unfortunate bi-product of the BBerry network is that hackers will randomly nuke people's phones. It doesn't do any damage to the software or hardware, but it does cause you have to do one of these insufferable resets.

The GPS works really well for the most part, and pairs well with Google Maps. Unfortunately, to get things like a listing of local restaurants based on your GPS location, you must sign up for TeleNav at $9.99/mo. That does come with turn-by-turn directions, but with my Moto Q 9h I get Windows Live Search for free, which will search for local restaurants/doctors/hospitals/schools etc based on your GPS location and has a nice map function, and there is Motorola hardware you can buy for $50 to get turn-by-turn directions in your car, so you can get on a Moto Q 9h (or other Windows Mobile 6 based phone) what costs $10/mo on the BB8820 for a very nominal amount of money, much less than $120/yr.

So, in sum:

PROS:

-EASY TO USE INTERFACE, EASY TO USE HARDWARE, GOOD KEYBOARD

-ABOVE AVERAGE BUILD-QUALITY

-TRACK-BALL IS A GOOD FEATURE

-GREAT E-MAIL CLIENT THAT WORKS WELL

-SOLID GPS FUNCTIONALITY (A LOT OF OTHER PHONES HAVE SPOTTY GPS)

-GOOD BATTERY LIFE

CONS:

-SOFTWARE / INTERFACE CAN HICCUP AND SLOW DOWN RANDOMLY WITHOUT ANY PROGRAMS OPEN

-NO 3G SPEEDS (THIS IS A HUGE DETRACTOR, IMO)

-MUST SIGN UP FOR $9.99/MO TO USE THE FULL CAPABILITY OF THE GPS WHERE ON OTHER PHONES YOU CAN GET THESE FEATURES FOR BASICALLY FREE

-SLOW E-MAIL DETECTION WHILE ON EDGE-ONLY

I'm not going to write a book like most people do on these reviews mostly because my spelling is horrible. I own one of these and i love it. I get my email's and text's and phone calls all the time. I work at Verizon wireless as a tech and i see people have issues with their phones all day. Out of all the pda's i see on a daily basis blackberry's are the least with the exception of the pearl. Treo's freeze and crash all the time the blackberry is simple and solid. I purchased my 8820 as a rebuilt one because it was cheaper. But it acts and preforms like it's brand new. Every now and then i have to pop the battery out but that's nothing compared to what i see people to through with their phones at my job. My battery dies quick sometimes to but thats life..over all a great phone

Pros:
-Windows Desktop Manager for Windows allows BB to sync with Outlook contacts, addresses, calendar and inbox.
-You can quick dial from a contact profile
-Dial history is cached
-WIFI easy to configure
-Network EDGE, WIFI, or BLUETOOTH can be activated/deactivated without frustration
-Easy to transfer music files, videos, etc to and from BB.
-The AT&T Navigator caches favorite addresses
-QWERTY pad with thumb mouse roller is brillant.
-Nifty audio sound quality.
-Okay battery life, but not the best. I recharge it every two days.
-Desktop is customizable
-Voice activated dial feature
-The applications that come with the RIM are easy to install and uninstall

Cons:
-Not compatible with Windows CE mobile applications. Darn RIM OS.
-Monthly charges to use the AT&T Navigator.
-Monthly charges to use XM radio streams.
-No touch screen.
-Will not capture photos or videos.
-Came loaded with only one game.