The Blackberry Tour 9630 is my third Blackberry device. It is uncommon to Verizon Wireless, and so far, it is the best Blackberry I’ve ever owned. Manufactured by Research in Motion (RIM) located in Waterloo, Ontario Canada the Blackberry Tour 9630 is one of the first devices to implement RIMs new, sleeker acquire.
After several years of success, RIMs Blackberry Curve (83xx series) line was beginning to glean a bit out dated. RIM had recently launched the Blackberry Storm on Verizon, their first touch screen devise, which included an updated physical design. Adding darker colors, and steeper angles, the Storm looked like a completely new devise. The Storms initial lackluster sales prompted RIM to hit the design floor and begin to update as much as possible to avoid losing market fraction. The Tour 9630 was one of the first results of this redesign process, and designed to replace the aging 8830 World Series, a popular corporate unit.
The Blackberry Tour is a QWERTY devise, similar to the Curve 83xx series. It boasts a 480×360 hi res display, showing over 65,000 colors. It comes in slightly larger then the Curve 83xx series at 4.4″x2.4″x.56″, but still smaller then the powerhouse Bold 9000 series, and its predecessor the 8830. It packs the standard features, such as GSM and CDMA radios, a 3.2mp camera, GPS, and stout 3G capabilities. Battery life is listed as 14 days standby, 5 hours talk time. In my experience, with light to moderate exercise, you may be able to pull 2 days, but nightly charges seem necessary. Of course, battery life is subjective to your usage, background apps, and many other factors. The Tour has a Bold style keyboard, which features raised keys, with no space in between, unlike the Curve 83xx series, which had individual keys with spaces in between. This seems to have really sped up my typing, and its one of the easiest thumb QWERTY keyboards I’ve ever feeble. In fact, I’m tying typing this review on my Blackberry Tour. The phone is very light, at 4.5oz, almost too light. I’m coming from a Motorola Droid, which is very heavy, so I’ve had to adjust to make sure the Tour doesn’t cruise out of my hands. The encourage battery cover is plastic, but boasts a nice carbon fiber effect.
All in all, the Blackberry tour is a great devise, that I am enjoying using. The Blackberry operating system is a work in progress, but it’s a professional system, that’s focused on getting the job done, instead of looking pretty. Email is what RIM built their business on, and that’s what the Blackberry shines at. SMS, MMS, Instant message, chat, and their own Blackberry Messenger application all work together to make sure that you can contact whoever you need to, whenever you need to. The phone handles multimedia well, but it’s not designed for watching movies, and the conceal is a bit small for some multimedia functions, but will work in a pinch. One of my favorite recent additions is the Kindle app for Blackberry. Many complain that the screen is too small to read on, but I’ve had no trouble, and really luxuriate in having my eBooks with me wherever I go.
I would recommend the Blackberry Tour to any Verizon user who wants a QWERTY devise, and who doesn’t want to be bogged down by flashy social networking phones. The Blackberry is a work horse, and will get the job done.
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Filed under Small Business Verizon by on Nov 29th, 2010. 
When I recently upgraded my cellular telephone through Verizon Wireless, there were countless options in models of cellular phone from which to choose. After considering various models, I settled upon the Mint Chocolate VX8500G from LG and Verizon Wireless. In this article I will review the pros and cons of the Verizon Mint Chocolate phone and go over some of the features and benefits, as well as drawbacks, that the Mint Chocolate phone has to offer.
Pros
MP3 Player: The LG Mint Chocolate Cellular Telephone from Verizon Wireless has a number of impressive features. Most fundamentally, the Mint Chocolate telephone is both an MP3 player and a cellular telephone in the same unit. To this end the LG Mint Chocolate phone has a Micro SD memory card slot that allows one to transfer music and photographs from one phone to another or from your computer to your telephone. Personally I have archived my entire music collection onto my telephone and now I am able to take my music collection with me wherever I go in just a cramped portable device.
Camera: The LG Mint Chocolate VX8500G also has a built-in camera that supports a resolution of up to 1280 x 960 pixels. While this is not the highest resolution camera available in a cellular telephone, it is a high enough resolution to be able to snap some acceptable-quality photographs very like a flash. I often use the built-in camera in my LG Mint Chocolate Telephone to snap speedily photographs that I can then upload to my personal blog or my business website very easily and quickly.
Attractive Color: Perhaps the most striking feature of the LG Mint Chocolate telephone from Verizon Wireless is its attractive minty green color, which is similar in color to the bright green of the Volkswagen New Beetle. I figured that as long as I was buying a phone I should do it in style and pick a telephone that would stand out in a crowd. I am very pleased with the bright and fun color of the LG Mint Chocolate telephone.
Cons
Lousy Touch Pad: One of the major drawbacks to the LG Mint Chocolate VX8500G telephone is its extremely lousy touch pad. The circular touch pad is convenient as a means of controlling the MP3 player portion of this intention, but the sensitivity on the touch pad is very low quality. The idea unhurried the Mint Chocolate’s touch pad is to emulate or copy the the touch pad on the various models of the Apple iPod. But while the sensitivity on the Mint Chocolate touchpad is adjustable, it is not adjustable enough. The touch pad is either far too sensitive or far too insensitive, which makes the procedure difficult to control.
No Java or Flash Support: While the LG Mint Chocolate from Verizon does have the ability to browse the internet and check email via the telephone, the mobile web browser is extremely limited and lacks Java attend. And with the ever-increasing presence of Java and Flash applications on many websites, the end result is that the Mint Chocolate phone from LG is next-to useless on those major websites that require a Java or Flash fine web browser.
In conclusion, the LG Mint Chocolate VX8500G telephone from Verizon wireless is a balanced blend of functionality and features. There are several advantages to this telephone, including the quality camera and the MP3 player features, but the lack of Java and Flash support for the phone’s web browser severely limits this phone’s usefulness as a gateway to total connectivity.
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Filed under Small Business Verizon by on Sep 7th, 2010.
The LG EnV Touch is fairly new in the Verizon Wireless phone lineup. First released in early summer 2009, the phone has held its beget. For Verizon customers wanting easy access to e-mail, Word, and other business and home computer type programs, the smart phones including Blackberry and various other makes, are very pricey. It costs at least thirty dollars a month just to have the smart phone activated…and that does not include an unlimited data package for e-mail and internet use on the phone. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate Verizon’s high tech basic phone options.
Out of Verizon’s regular cell phones, the LG EnV Touch takes the cake. It has not only a fully-functioning touch mask, but also a convenient clamshell design with full QWERTY keyboard. The attached QWERTY keyboard does make the phone a bit heavier than other touch screen models, but it is expansive for texters. The keys are nicely spaced apart and the design is very user-friendly. The EnV Touch has several stand-out features. In addition to full-spectrum Bluetooth capabilities, it has a document viewer which is mammoth for business people and students. Though Word and PowerPoint documents cannot be edited from the document viewer, they are still downloadable from a computer to the phone. Extra memory from a card may be needed for adding on multiple titanic documents. Students can use the document viewer to discover over class PowerPoints, while businesspeople can use the viewer to practice presentations and notion quarterly reports. The document viewer supports at least the file types .doc, .xls, .ptt, and .pdf . LG’s EnV Touch is currently the only basic phone offered at Verizon with a document viewer-making it the closest thing to a gleaming phone without paying the much higher label. Also, with a smaller unlimited data price ($9.99 a month) than a smart phone ($44.99 a month), users can surf the web, access e-mail, and listen to music. The touch screen is easy to expend with zoom in and out features as well as a scroll panel to allow for full viewing of web pages. Shortcuts to Facebook, Myspace, and other favorite websites can be placed on the phone’s main veil.
Adding to EnV Touch’s features are a drawing pad, notepad, and notebook. A notepad icon can be added to the main touch screen. It displays notes and memos at a spy. The larger notebook, found in the tools section of the phone menu can hold much larger notes. Continuing, the 3.2 mega pixel camera is not bad. It has enhanced photo features to perfect images. Also, the touch screen camera mode allows the user to take a photo from multiple angles.
Music listening is a breeze on the EnV Touch. The side of the phone’s headphone jack fits all standard headphones. Many cell phone models need some sort of adapter for music because the headphone jacks are too small for standard headphones. Using a memory card, the phone can hold all kinds of music files. Video viewing and making is also accessible through the phone’s multimedia section.
Overall the LG EnV Touch should be rated a 4.8 out of 5 stars. As with all touch screen phones with only a touch-lock screen feature, dialing contacts can happen accidentally.
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Filed under Small Business Verizon by on Aug 22nd, 2010.