The BlackBerrry 8830 WE after two weeks

Well, the Red Verizon BlackBerry 8830 arrived February 25, 2008. It has taken some time to get things setup the way I want, but overall I'm very happy with it. I've found applications to replace the most important Palm OS applications I'd been using. The old Treo 700p has been retired. It is sitting on a shelf with its battery removed. RIP.

Functionality
Overall I'm impressed with how the 8830 just works. It is fairly intuitive, and the software is integrated very well. I'd seen negative comments about the keyboard, but it works fine two handed or one handed.

VZ Navigator
Overall it works well enough. I had some early problems where it would give me an error when trying to use it, but I tracked this down to memory issues. When the "File Free" gets too low VZ Navigator will not work when the GPS receiver is used. Doing a battery pull after a week to clean up the memory fixed the problem.

VZ Access
Tethering for my notebook computer via a USB cable. It works fine and is fast enough for email and web browsing.

Software
I've added the following applications to the 8830:

• SplashID for BlackBerry - A password program that syncs with a desktop application.
• Mobylo! Multi Alarm - Five independent alarms that are very configurable.
• BBTask PRO! - Uses the standard todo database, but it has a much better interface, though a little slow.
• WorldMagic - World clock that shows the times for four locations.
• GoTimeIt - Timer/Stopwatch
• MemoryUp-Mobile RAM Booster - Memory management. Bought to fix the "File Free" problem, which it appears to not address.
  
• Mobipocket Reader - free ebook reader.
• MidpSSH - A free ssh/telnet client.
• Opera Mini - A free browser alternative, not better, just different than the native BlackBerry browser.
• Google Maps Application
• Google Mail Application
• Beyond411
• VZ Navigator - The only way to access the GPS receiver in a VZN 8830.
• VZ Access - laptop modem (At work I got 487 kb/s down and 68 kb/s up.)

I use Super to convert videos for playback on the BB8830. It is free, and works well. It would be nice if it had "full frame rate" and "half frame rate" options though. That would be useful for batch mode.

Outlook
So far I'm using the BlackBerry Desktop Manager to sync the 8830 to Outlook 2003. I'm still get a few synchronization issues, but it is getting better. Some of the problems are probably related to the initial import from the 700p. Once things are working 100% I'll add a second computer to sync to.

Conclusion
After two weeks I'm glad I made the change from the Treo 700p to the BlackBerry 8830 WE.