With the BlackBerry® 7290 Wireless Handheld you’ll benefit from all the features the BlackBerry® solution has to offer — including phone, email, browser and organizer — in a small, lightweight handheld with a comfortable feel. And, with easy-to-use navigation and a QWERTY keyboard, staying connected is easier than ever.
| Size: | 4.5 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches (LxWxD) |
| Weight: | 4.9 oz. |
| Display: | Font size (user selectable), Color display |
The real beauty of Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry devices is their simplicity, and in that regard, the 7290 for Cingular Wireless hits the nail on the head. RIM BlackBerry 7290 is a simple and sleek interpretation of what the BlackBerry is all about. At $299.99, or $249.99 with the $50 mail-in rebate, the BlackBerry 7290 is fairly priced for a smart phone. The RIM BlackBerry 7290 looks like a more traditional PDA-style BlackBerry device than its slimmer cousin, the RIM BlackBerry 7100t. That said, the 7290 is on the smaller side (4.5 by 2.9 by 0.9 inches; 4.9 ounces) and styled in an attractive metallic blue; we had no problem fitting the 7290 in either a shirt or pants pocket. The sharp, 240×160-pixel display supports more than 65,000 colors, with clear icons and text, but the backlit display has a strange muted appearance.
With its Bluetooth headset support, the BlackBerry 7290 becomes much more viable as a combination PDA/phone rather than just a traditional e-mail handheld device. The BlackBerry 7290 looks much like its predecessors; in fact, it looks just like the BlackBerry 7230. It’s slender and slab-like, comfortable in the hand, with the usual full QWERTY keyboard and a bright 160-by-240 color screen that looks especially good in sunlight. Battery life is excellent—talk time is 60 percent longer than that of our Editors’ Choice for phone/e-mail devices, the palmOne Treo 650. And as a quad-band GSM device, the BlackBerry 7290 can travel the world.
The 7290 is one of the few BlackBerries to include Bluetooth, so if you’re concerned about the geek factor of talking into what looks like a scientific calculator, a wireless headset is now an option. You get nearly worldwide access to voice and data with the quad-band GSM/GPRS radio. The 7290 ships with viewers for displaying attachments in popular formats such as Word and JPEG (editing them requires additional software).
Specifications:
Navigation: QWERTY (Keyboard)
User Interface: Intuitive icons and menus
Memory: 32 MB flash memory
Microprocessor: No
Modem: Embedded RIM® wireless modem
Email Integrations:
- Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange
- Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM® Lotus® Domino®
- Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Novell® GroupWise®
- Integrates with an existing enterprise email account
- Integrates with existing personal email account
- Integrates with optional new device account
Device Security:
- Password protection and keyboard lock
- Support for AES or Triple DES encryption when integrated with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server
- FIPS 140-2 Validated (FIPS validation)
- Optional support for S/MIME
Network:
- North America: 850 MHz GSM/GPRS networks
- North America: 1900MHz GSM®/GPRS networks
- Europe/Asia Pacific: 1800MHz GSM/GPRS networks
- Europe/Asia Pacific: 900MHz GSM/GPRS networks
