My first thought when I saw the 8700 out of the box (which my hubby so wonderfully went up to our office to get for me Thanks Baby) was that is was smaller than I expected. This is a good thing. Then I saw the keys.... they seemed awfully small... maybe not a good thing.
Having typed on it alot over the past few days, the keys are perfect for me. They were not too small, and the BB fits into my hand perfectly. It is a great size.
The screen is amazing. Stuff that was ok and a little squished on the 7100t looks so much better on the 8700, kinda reminds me of going from the cheap basic tv to the nice HD widescreen we have now.
There is also no trouble seeing the screen outside as there was on the 7100t.
The 8700 is also much faster hands down than the 7100t. When my hubby gets back with it tonight I will have to get him to test load a page and see what the time difference is. I also get the EDGE network here, so I can not say how much is network and how much is phone.
I haven't played with the extra shortcut button on the side that takes you to profiles, but I bet I will be using it regularly every day to change to silent when I go to work. Its one less icon I have to worry about the location of.
I do not like the case that came with the phone, it is a hard plastic that is not very attractive. I will have to look around and see what I can get. I will also want to get screen protectors for it.
The call volume is great, I had no trouble using it as a phone. It feels more like a normal house phone next to the ear than my 7100 did.
The new TMo IM is great. You have to go into your web browser bookmarks and click on a link to download it to the phone. It now has an entry in your profile for each IM so you can select a different sound for a new message in each one. You also send a message by hitting enter - which was not the case in the IM on the 7100t and the main reason I did not use it.
Ofcourse now you can also get Google Talk and Yahoo IMs directly from RIM that work great, plus BB Messenger... this will probably put the squeeze on the 3rd party IM apps. There is less and less reason to use one of them every day.
Overall this is a great phone and I would reccomend upgrade to anyone, with the following caution - If you have big hands or fingers you might want to go to a store and try out the keyboard before spending the dough. Tmo was great to my hubby when he changed from a normal voice plan to a Blackberry Plan.
Oh and all the cords - USB, car charger, travel charger - that fit my 7100t fit my 8700 too. I still had to have seconds as we are using both BBs, but if it wasn't for that I would not need any new chargers.
I looked around for the Sidekick to compare key size, but I couldn't find it... I will have to ask the husband what he did with it.
I will add more to this as I think of it. :)
