BlackBerry 7290 Phone (AT&T, Phone Only, No Service) Reviews

Average Customer Rating - 28 Reviews

Great phone, lousy service, December 30, 2004
This is a great phone, if your primary use is email; If you really need voice service, and only occasional email, consider the Audiovox SMT5600 instead. Regardless, I hope you have more luck with Cingular than I did. There's simply not enough time or room to recout my problems with Cingular but I'll provide a brief recap.

I have service with Cingular and with AT&T. The problems began when I tried to merge my two services into one account (Cingular did acquire AT&T, right?), upgrade my service plan, and upgrade the AT&T phone. Simple enough, right? Wrong.

After (literally) four visits to the store, 10+ phone calls (and speaking with over 30+ people), and completing several forms on the web I thought I had finally solved the problem and everything was fine. THEN my phone showed up ... it was the wrong one. Attempts to get the problems resolved on the phone failed (we can't do that here), attempts to return it to the store failed (that was sent to you by our phone sales group, you can't return it here), and a final desperate attempt to resolve it through Cingular's Office of the CEO was meet by "you shouldn't have tried to transfer your service from AT&T to Cingular" (i.e. it's your fault) and "you're trying to order the most expensive phone we have, what do you expect us to do, give you a free one?" (i.e. you're trying to cheat us).

My experiences can basically be catagorized in the following fashion:
* You're an AT&T customer, you'll need to call Cingular for that.
* You're a Cingular customer, you'll need to call AT&T for that.
* You're a corporate customer, we're the retail group. You'll need to call business services for that.
* You did that over the phone, you'll need to take up that problem with telesales.
* You did that in the store, you'll need to take up that problem with them.
* That can't be done over the web.
* I don't know how to do that.

I think the crowning touch however, was the retail store that refused to sell me the phone because my account is tagged as a "sponsored" account that gets an equipment discount. The manager wanted to sell it to someone who would pay full price!

Good luck!

...msg

Great alternative to laptop while travelling, as a business tool, October 30, 2005
This is my second blackberry. This model is significantly better than the previous model. It has a much brighter screen, a lighted keypad, bluetooth, improved firmware etc. The best thing about blackberries is BES software that provides seamless connectivity to the my corporate Microsft Exchange based outlook software. It provides bi-directional updates between Exchange and the blackberry. No need to do explicit syncing anymore. Its ability to view email attachments is very useful. One essential thing that is missing is a speakerphone. While travelling, this is indispensible as I can check all the emails, without having to boot up my laptop and finding a wi-fi hotspot. Works fine in europe and asia. Other things I wish they add are an mp3 player, a mpeg-4 video player, a gps device and a wifi voip phone. Since the technology to do this already exists, hopefully the next version of blackberry would fill these holes. I need to reduce the number of tech gadgets I carry around.

Bluetooth vs. Battery Life vs. Slow Processor vs. Bugs, December 27, 2004
Fifteen months ago I bought my first BB7210, and feel it's one of the best business tools I've ever used. Battery life was good for at least two days talking 3-4 hours per day or 5-6 days in low use, and the integration of Outlook with the phone was AWESOME. In Dec. 04, I upgraded to the BB7290 mainly for the Bluetooth feature. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! Battery life barely gets me through a day, and the lag time from menu to menu is much slower than the BB7210. The unit is slightly larger and heavier than the BB7210. After using the device for only two days, callers could NOT hear my voice, though I could hear them clearly, and I had a great signal? Cingular is replacing the device; however, RIM will need to make some serious changes for me to be as enthusiastic as I was over the BB7210.

SSSSSLLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWW!, November 25, 2004
I bought this Blackberry for use on the Cingular network after using a Nextel Blackberry that my wife got for her work. I assumed that this device would work pretty much the same as hers.

Boy was I disappointed. The data access was unbearably slow, to the point that I just had to return this thing. I tested the device all over town, and it was always slow.

A couple days after I returned it, I received a welcome pack from Cingular with a coverage map showing which areas had their new high speed access and which areas didn't. Unfortunately, original map is color, but the copy mailed to me was black and white and it was almost impossible to tell which area I was in. I live in Southern Cal., which according to Cingular's web-site is in their newer, high speed data area. Given the speed of this device, I'd guess that I'm in the lower speed area.

I've also tried using Sprint PCS's version of Blackberry (which just came out) and it was very fast, but doesn't not have bluetooth, which is what attracted me to this device in the first place.

Horrible phone and service, great emailer, September 23, 2005
Like many of you, it seems we bought this device because we wanted to get our emails and be able to place/receive calls with 1 device. Should be simple this day and age, huh?? Wrong. I don't know if this is a blackberry issue or cingular-- frankly I couldn't care because the end result is-- this doesn't work.

My old cingular phone received "5 bar" reception just about anywhere I went (San Fran area). I thought that by upgrading to a blackberry and staying with the same provider, this wouldn't be an issue. My own home went from a "5 bar" household to a "1 on a good day" household. I have the bluetooth accessory and find myself in the stupid position of having to leave my phone outside on my doorstep while I talk in the living room on my bluetooth (only room with even 1 bar reception)

I get dropped calls at least 5 times a day, have trouble hearing someone because the "mute" button sometimes wants to engage and have to be careful about where my fingers are holding the phone so I don't accidently hang up on someone (even though the phone usually takes care of that little detail whenever it wants to...)

I am losing friends, business associates and family because of this crappy phone. When I went to Cingular to try and change to the Treo, they told me I would have to pay full price, re-sign another 2-yr contract and that I wasn't eligible for the in-store discount on the Treo because I was an exisiting customer.

I am now in the uncomfortable position of either breaking my contract with Cingular, or buying a separate cell phone.

But this is a great email tool that works great with my company's network. (But... lousy, painfully slow internet service...)

You decide....

No Blackberry Enterprise 4.0 Support, February 25, 2005
Since Cingular merged with AT&T and are now offering the 7290, the service is poor and the phone not compatible with corporate Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES).

Cingular no longer makes the older AT&T 7280 Blackberry available but AT&T Wireless continues to offer great support for the 7280 and support for BES 4.

The 7290 does not fully support the latest version of BES 4.0. Unlike AT&T and other wireless vendors, Cingular has not released BlackberryOS 4.x so integration with BES 4.0 is very limited.

Works great with my corporate enterprise service, March 26, 2005
I have had no problems. Works great with my corporate "enterprise server". If your company supports this device for email, you will love it. I travel quite a bit and I now leave my laptop at home for daytrips (I bring my PPT presentations on a USB drive). I recommend the phone service as part of it. My co-workers had a separate phone and then switched to all on the BBerry (both phone and email)...it was more conveniant and he looked like a dork with two devices on his belt!

Using the phone is not as slick as a regular cell phone, but if you use your phone for 90% business like I do, the benefits od the enterprise server outweighs the negatives (e.g. being able to look up internal company numbers wirelessly through the enterprise server).

Motorola Bluetooth headset works well with this unit.

Cingular works fine for me (no worse than any other provider). I am in the Chicago area.

I haven't figured out how to add a separate instance of my personal email and contacts on the unit. I don't want to intermix them with my work contacts/email. I am pretty sure there is a way to accomplisg this, but I have not had the time to work through it.

I'm sold on this unit.

Best phone I've owned so far..., April 7, 2006
I've own many phones in the past. So far, this one has topped them off! I didn't want a camara, mp3 player (or other "kid stuff"), but a phone that would do three things: 1.) Be a phone; 2.) eMail; 3.) Calendar and applications that would sync with my Mac in an easy and non-confusing way. I got it!

Beware if you return it!, January 12, 2005
Its a nice phone. I have had a 7230 for years and thought that this would be a nicer screen etc. But, the screen quality was the same, so it is quite a small upgrade really.

The biggest warning to everyone is that returning this through Amazon is a true nightmare. If you read the fine print, Amazon will take it back, but you have to call Cingular immediately separately.

Here is what you have to make sure to do:

1. Make sure to get the UPS tracking number for the return package. That is the only link between Amazon and Cingular. Amazon doesn't take any responsibility for the plan and if you don't have that tracking number then they will say they think you still have the phone.
2. The phone activates the second that it ships so you are paying charges the whole time even if you never turn the phone on. So if you talk even one second on the phone, you are paying for at least a week of shipment time as well, so if you don't like the phone don't turn it on.
3. Cingular doesn't know anything about Amazon as a reseller and Amazon doesn't know anything about Cingular, so what you have to do is to call Cingular and have the UPS tracker for the package so when you return you can prove that you really did. Also, you'll need to print out all the return web pages and fax it to Cingular to prove you really returned it.
4. It takes about an hour and a half, but if you are lucky like me, you can get it taken care of.

Ok phone, but deceptive features, August 29, 2005
The phone is ok. A little slow actually. Bluetooth is useless unless you plan on forking over $50 for an earpiece. The main reason I got this phone is for third party applications (like ssh, instant messaging, etc.). These were necessary for my job.

However, this "unlimited blackberry plan" does not cover data access for these applications. See blackberry for more info on this issue. Cingular requires that you purchase an additional plan to get these apps to work! Something not mentioned here. Cingular support regarding this problem is contradicting, ignorant, and outright misleading.

Save your time and your money, go with another provider.

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