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I purchased my 9850 today from Sprint. I'm moving up from a AT&T 9700.
So far, I like it. It's definitely lighter than the 9700, and I'm used to not having a physical keyboard since my wife has a Galaxy S.
The activation over WiFi to my BESX server was smooth, although for the first time ever (over 5 years), I had an activation error - two saved messages (out of four) didn't migrate. I don't think I'm going to miss them.
For browsing, I have noticed the browser "lock up" for about 5-10 seconds, but only when in landscape mode, and only on one particular site. It's probably because of some heavy javascript, and when I switched to portrait, the issue went away. Take this with a grain of salt, as this is not a statistically significant sample size to make any determination as to the performance of the browser.
Flipping through pictures on the SD card is VERY snappy, especially when compared to the stuttering from my 9700.
BIS email setup through the setup wizard was very easy for one of my Google Apps email accounts.
I also have Google Voice, and I love the integration Sprint has with GV. No longer will I have to select "call from google voice" when I make an outbound call - when I added the Sprint phone number to my GV account, it asked me if I wanted to change my GV number to my Sprint number OR make it so my phone defaults to using my GV number for calls and texts. VERY nice.
One minor issue here - the Google Voice app (downloaded from m.google.com) is not ready for the 9850. The main screen is tiny, and when I exit, it "blanks" the screen. I can click the application key, and it'll pop up the menu and let me switch to an application, and then select home to get back to home. I suspect this behavior is one of the reasons why many of the apps that I had on my 9700 are showing as not available for my 9850 in the App Store.
My SiriusXM app doesn't work - I put in my login information and it says the service is temporarily unavailable. Still works on my 9700.
Application Storage space is showing 156.1 MB. I have probably around half my applications loaded, but almost all of the big ones (Facebook, AstraSync, etc) are already on. I haven't cleaned up any of the pre-loaded stuff from Sprint, and I've actually installed some of them to take a look.
Sprint/RIM did not include any holster or sleeve for the phone, and I'll be taking a look through shopcrackberry.com to find something for it.
So, final verdict? I like it. It's fast, the important (for me) apps run, and I'm no longer jealous of my wife's Android device.08-21-11 09:15 PM - Picked my Torch up yesterday afternoon. By the way it was a touch choice with the 9930--that thing is sweet--looks fantastic and amazingly light yet solid. Desktop Manager made the transition easy--only have to re-invite my BBM contacts
. Quick points on the device after moderate use--say 6 hours of total actual use.
Love the screen and picked up the very nice BB soft shell that Kevin showed from fan nite--see pics. The responsiveness to touch is good, little gimmicky on the web when selecting links: a quick touch may work but not always and then holding to get the options such as Open Link does work--nice options when holding to share the link and other actions--well thought out.
Learning quickly with the virtual keyboard--biggest issue is the size of the 'keys' which is difficult to change and my wide thumbs. The auto-correct and predictive text does seem a hair slow but is very functional. I do not have a ton of experience outside of the playbook with virtual keyboards so can't compare to iOS, Android et. al.
Only a couple of small gripes: when surfing the virtual keyboard is missing the '.com' button on the Playbook--that would be nice to have--we get spoiled quickly don't we?
Battery life appears like it will be very good. After about 3 hours of moderate web and BBM use on 3G with a full charge I am down to 80%--so about 15 hours if averaged out. So ought to be good after things settle out.
I will try to go through a detail review after a couple days of use. So far a happy camper and think RIM has a good starting effort.08-22-11 10:44 AM - You might want to have your son's eyes checked if he thinks that the 9930 screen is anywhere near the S2. LOLToo bulky? I think that's the first time I've heard the 9930 referred to in those terms! Many people think it's too light, but bulky? The screen is noticeably larger than the 9650 though, to the point that my son is considering switching from the S2 to the 9930.
As for being bulky, it's not the weight but the overall size relative to the small screen. It's certainly larger than the Bold and the screen is only 0.3" larger diagonally.08-22-11 10:49 AM
