[AimHighHitLow]

I rely on the Tmobile/Blackberry UMA/WiFi calling combo. I live in the country with no cell service but work in an area with good Tmobile signals. I must deal for my mother's nursing home issues from 1000 miles distant, and I love that Blackberry Bold on Tmobile allows me to have 1 phone number for everything. Don't need a landline at home and people can reach me anytime anyplace day or night.

I just upgraded to the 9900 from the 9870 and the 9800 before that. My observations:

Old UMA service was better and not because of the handoff issues. When I pulled into my driveway, UMA would grab my home WiFi signal before I got out of the car. New WiFi calling allows me to get out of the car, get the mail, walk in the house, and then will connect to Tmobile. WiFi sometimes need the old battery pull in addition to fully connect. So there are still plenty of kinks to work out with the current build.

My battery life has been only slightly reduced over the 9870 perhaps because I mostly don't pick up either 3G or 4G signals where I work. It's EDGE all day long. So no problem here.

There have been lots of complaints about the camera. I understand....but not a biggie for me. The Desktop Manager for Mac leaves something to be desired.

All that said, I'm pleased with the 9900 especially when paired with the PlayBook. Looking forward to the new PlayBook keyboard. Have been thinking about adding Citrix and linking to my home computer....opinions solicited.

I'm not a BB fanboy; I run all OSs for varying purposes. But for some people, the Tmobile/BB Wifi combo is a tremendous convenience and trumps retina displays and a gazillion apps.

[Ginger Eskimo]

For me, WiFi calling is unusable. I get such sh**** quality it's ridiculous, it disconnects and i can't hear the person on the other end. WiFi reception is extremely poor on my bold9900 compared to every other device, including blackberries, i own.

I don't know why this is, but it is. It's been the same on all 7.1.xxx OS, although the poor wifi signal just started recently/

[maxknux]

So far I enjoy it and the wifi calling works nicely for me but still would like the old UMA because of the handoff feature.

I don't know about battery life but I always seem to kill mine for half day for heavy usage and low level its about a full day charge.

Its the fact of using a smartphone to charge whenever possible.
-Charge in the car
- Charge it connected to the laptop
- charge it when you go to sleep

[Tomas the bee]

So reading this, I am completely puzzled!
I have T-Mobile too, uploaded the new OS7.1 but still don't have the wifi functionality. After uploading the latest 7.1, the only difference I notice in the connections is that I now have the hotspot but no option to set "wifi preferred" still.
Help help help how do I get my bold 9900 to have the wifi calling??? :-(

[robsteve]

I am on Rogers, and the wifi calling options are under network connections, then mobile network. From there, you have the option to setup for preferred network You can select wifi calling preferred, Wifi only, mobile preferred or mobile only.

On Rogers, you need to subscribe for the feature before it works. It is under the calling add-ons when using the online account setup from a pc.

[fgoyti]

I am on Rogers, and the wifi calling options are under network connections, then mobile network. From there, you have the option to setup for preferred network You can select wifi calling preferred, Wifi only, mobile preferred or mobile only.

On Rogers, you need to subscribe for the feature before it works. It is under the calling add-ons when using the online account setup from a pc.

Hey Robsteve, do you pay extra for that service? I'm with bell and I guess it's not offered to us but sounds like a good feature. I hope we get it eventually too.