I bought this phone this year in July as a replacement for my BlackBerry 7100v (see my review on that also). The primary reason for buying this was the enahanced feature set including a faster CPU and an improved screen. Oh yeah, my company reimbursed me for half of the price so it costed me just $100 new! Now on to the review...
Display: The screen is quite possibly the best ever I have seen on a blackberry handheld. With this version the LCD is perfectly visible outdoors which was a huge complaint I had on my 7100v. This model also has indoor/outdoor self-adjusting backlight to address this issue which works very well and can adjust quickly to most any light situation. The screen is also easier to read compared to 7100v.
Phone: The phone functionality works as it should. The voice is loud and clear through the handset and the speaker phone is good without distortions. They kept the "call history" phone feature list which will list all the calls you made to a number including how long each call lasted. This device has bluetooth support and I have it paired successfully with my car (see my BMW M3 review) and my motorola HS850 headset.
PDA: As with all previous Blackberry’s this is not a full functioned PDA either. You can still sync your calendar, tasks, notes etc from Outlook or you can create them on the phone. These are nearly not as capable as Palm Treo or a windows mobile phone.
E-mail and Messaging: Push email is what made BlackBerry famous and they still are the best when it comes to email and messaging. The ease of typing, reading, and sending e-mails and messages is unmatched by any smart phone out there. The suretype keypad takes some getting used to for newbies but once you get used to it you will be churning out e-mails and messages faster than you can speak them. I actually won a small contest at a local coffee shop for fastest SMS typing using this phone! I am hooked on to this device for messaging features as I am constantly online on yahoo messenger with this device and happily chatting away. No other phone can compete with BB’s in this area yet.
Overall Impression: The device is well put together and feels solid/nice to hold. I have dropped it several times and it didn’t even crash once. Just like its predecessor 7100v, the 7130c should push Blackberry devices further into the consumer market. This phone still lacks a camera, cannot play mp3’s, has no external memory support so it is still not a full multimedia device (that should change with the 8100 which I will be reviewing soon). If you can live without these things and primarily use this for e-mail/messaging/calling then you will be satisfied with this device.If you are looking for a multimedia device, than you shouldn’t consider this phone and look at Nokia N73 or SE W850i.