It's been a long time since I have had a BlackBerry in my hand that I really liked. I felt like all of the ones that were released here recently from RIM have been straight old and outdated regardless of their release date.  So now RIM has dropped three new ones on us with the highly touted BlackBerry OS 7. I played with the BlackBerry 9930 for Verizon Wireless. So did this new BlackBerry excite me? Is it worth me using as my everyday device?  Let's see.

Simply put yes! And a big one!  This device looks and feels beautiful.  Now, I have to use this disclaimer. I had been fed up with my Thunderbolt I was using. The battery life was driving me crazy and costing me money, so the timing for this new BlackBerry could not have been better.  I was searching for alternatives.

So I pull this beauty out of the box, and I was impressed from jump street. 

This is a nice step up from some of the older devices. It looks the same as their other devices, so don't look for that to be different.  However, the speed is definitely what you will notice. The 9930 packs a 1.2 GHz, single core (hi T-Mobile) processor, 768 MB of RAM, 8GB of onboard storage, Bluetooth and WiFi. 

The screen is quite impressive with a crystal clear 640 x 480 LCD display with a 2.8 inch screen. That was a huge question for me.  I was at a 4.3 screen with the Thunderbolt, so could I take the huge drop down to 2.8? So far it hasn't bothered me especially using my Playbook for most of my apps anyway.

The speed of the device is almost shocking. I fly through the screens with no lag. In fact, I have been looking for lag and have yet to find it. 

It's a 5-megapixel camera capable of 720p  HD video capture. It's not great by any means but does the job. The shots aren't horrible but in comparison to my Thunderbolt it does fall short.

After using this for a few days, I have to say that I'm not as impressed with battery life as I should be. The old BlackBerry devices had some pretty lengthy life, so I was a little surprised I could not get more out of this. I am a power user and it did last about a day, but even still I really can't complain. My Thunderbolt got me till about 2:00 pm, and then it would need a charge. Not a good business phone.

Pros

1. Great email and notification system. This is a no-brainer here because that's what BlackBerry is known for.  
2. Speed — This bad boy flies
3. The look. This is an impressive looking device that doesn't look or feel cheap.

Cons

1. Battery life is ok. Not great. Sure this is an upgrade from my HTC Thunderbolt but everything would be. 
2. Call quality is not so great at least on my device. Clients and friends are telling me that I sound very static like. Not good for a business phone but I will get a Bluetooth to try this.
3. OS 7 doesn't do much for me but it's fine until QNX based phones.

Definitely, a good phone for the BlackBerry enthusiasts but may not be enough to woo new customers.