SAVE $450.00 - BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless) $49.99

An almost perfect quick messaging phone device! I became a fan of Blackberry unwillingly. I was getting a new phone via my work and I had to give up my Palm Treo 755p (a phone which I LOVED btw). I received the Blackberry Bold a little over a year ago and almost immediately noticed a few things: First, the phone was really quite nice. Thin, the screen was simply unbelievable, and second, it was nowhere NEAR as user-friendly out of the box as the aging Palm platform. Say what you want about the older Palm phones, but they were designed so it took maybe 10 minutes TOPS and you were a virtual expert at almost everything the phone could do. NOT so with Blackberry. However, I slowly got away from accidentally reaching for a non-existent stylus or reaching to touch the screen (after all, I had been used to touch screens for quite some time...) I finally, slowly, became a major fan of the Blackberry system. I loved the keyboard on the Bold, the speakers (man were they good, too) and most of all, I LOVED the e-mailing accessability of a Blackberry. When it started to go south on me, I naturally assumed I'd be getting another Bold to replace it, imagine my surprise and utter disappointment when my replacement turned out to be the newest Windows Mobile 6.5 Tilt 2. Sure its a nice LOOKING phone, but other than that, I really have nothing nice to say about it. If you want to know in detail how much I LOATHED it, go see my review here at amazon. Long story short, now I'm on Verizon and the option of a Bold or the Bold 9700 is simply not available. The next best thing was the Tour. I sure wished it had an optical trackpad like the new Bold or some of the cheaper new Curve's, but somehow I'll find the courage to go on. The Tour has an almost identical keyboard as the Bold, however the keyboard is decidedly narrower. This is purely a personal thing with each individual smartphone user, some love it, some don't, I fall somewhere in between. Honestly, I liked the original Bold's wider profile. The keys were spaced enough apart that writing up a text message or even a longer e-mail was a breeze with very few mistakes. The new Tour, while not a great deal smaller overall than the Bold, is enough so that it almost feels like a toy by comparison (same with my wife's Curve 8330). Since the keys are much closer, it took a bit to get used to. I STILL really like it, but all things considered, I really prefer pretty much everything about the original Bold. Other than that, lets dive into some additional particulars: The speaker is actually wonderful. Whether you have it on speakerphone or not, the sound (so far) is fantastic, crisp, clear and miraculously better than my embarassingly weak Tilt 2. I read quite a few reviews here trashing the audio quality of the 9630, but so far, my experience is the exact opposite. I LOVE the lock button and mute button on top. Would've RATHER seen an actual switch similar to what my Treo had. Going into a meeting where audio wasn't welcome, I'd just flip that switch, and immediately the phone would give a small vibrate to let me know it was now set to do just that without audio. Something ALL smartphones should adopt. I created an audio profile right away, but I have noticed that annoyingly, when I have the phone on Silent, I'll receive a text message and the phone will beep anyways. I took it in and the rep explained to me a very long, techno-babble filled reason why, which DID make sense, but why then did my Bold NOT have this issue and I set it up literally exactly the same? It's been a pain, I'll be honest. If I manually set my phone to 'Silent' I dang-well expect THAT to be the over-riding profile, and to be honest, it simply makes NO sense WHY any other would take precedence. Its simply a design flaw the should be fixed. Pure and simple. I have noticed a small lag in between exiting out of one program to another, and so I took the advice of someone at another website, and instead of simply exiting a particular program by hitting the 'Back' key, I officially 'Close' out each program first. Blackberry's have the ability to run multiple apps at one time, therefore the more it runs, the slower it will run. Good advice for ANYONE who owns a BB. Since doing so, my phone runs MUCH quicker. I quickly downloaded the newest BB Messenger off the internet--MUCH better than what came stock. It was free, too. I used to have this on my Bold, making me wonder why after all this time the Tour didn't come with it out of the box? (RIM Hello??) The phone feels sturdy and well manufactured, a HUGE step UP from the older first generation Curves, which as I mentioned earlier, seemed so small and lightweight (to ME) that they almost felt like a cheap toy or display model. I like how the Tour feels in my hands, especially the rubberized coating around the back and sides. The camera was certainly a step UP from my original Bold and looks to me better than the 3.2 MP camera (without flash) on my Tilt 2. I must admit that the shutter lag can be quite frustrating, but hey, its a PHONE...I don't really rely on it to take permanent home photos, I have a camera for that...but when I want to capture something out of nowhere while on the go, yeah, this one is more than adequate for my needs. As always, set up of my e-mail was a snap and about as simple as can be. Nobody does Push e-mail like BB's do, NOBODY...at least not yet. I'm a bit curious why after all this time no other major manufacturer has been able to mimic the immediate e-mail arrival ability to the extent that BB's have had for quite some time now. The screen, believe it or not has a few more pixels than even the slightly larger Bold, meaning an even BETTER viewing experience overall...which is saying a LOT. The original Bold had the same number of pixels as the iphone and the Pre, but crammed together in a smaller screen which translates to a gorgeous and vibrant, very colorful screen. My Tilt 2 had even MORE pixels, and yet was nowhere near as vibrant as the iphone, Pre or the newer BB's. Why? I have no idea...it just wasn't. One tiny gripe: why they had to change the plug-in from the mini USB port to a slightly different one is simply beyond me. The mini's were great and worked wonderful...now everything I USED to have for my Bold is unusable here. Sure its a small gripe, but in my opinion, a valid one. Find something and dangit, STICK to it! So far the Verizon service has been light YEARS ahead of what AT&T saddled me with for over a year. Their commercials claiming to have 3G service equal to Verizons is quite honestly a JOKE. Sure, AT&T has some abilities that Verizon's 3G service doesn't, but what GOOD is talking on the phone and surfing the 'net if in fact you haven't got a decent signal to begin with, huh? I'm sure that coverage in large cities around the country isn't a problem, but out where I live, Verizon is so much better, that AT&T is quite honestly a joke by comparison. Sorry, but its true. I downloaded the free Bolt web browser, and I have to say, it's pretty snappy and impressive all things considered. 'Course I wasn't really all that dissastisfied with the original BB browser to begin with. It may not be what you can find with a Droid, iphone or the Pre, but heck, I've got the Web on my phone and it certainly LOOKS pretty good to me, so I don't really care all that much. Viewing full html sites on a screen this small isn't what I consider heavy duty stuff anyway...for that I'd much rather have my PC. Battery life seems about average to me as well...I'd say on par with the Bold, and yet a HUGE step up from my Tilt 2. I wish there was a free app which allows me to keep the keyboard unlit unless I want it to be, that alone helps save a great deal of juice. My Treo had a free program I found called 'Power Hero' and it gave several, simple to apply options for saving power, the keyboard being just one. I noticed a very recognizable jump in how much power my Treo had once I began using it. There very well may be a 3rd party app which will do the same for BB's, but so far, I haven't stumbled upon it (and to be entirely honest, I really haven't looked all that hard for it either). I tend to be annoyingly anal when it comes to making sure my phone has plenty of battery power, so I constantly plug it in. I see so many people whose phones run out of power when they really need them the most, and I wonder why they don't make plugging in their phones a bigger priority, but oh well--that doesn't seem to be a problem I have. I get tired of the same old theme on my phones and I have discovered some of the many free Blackberry Themes you can find and download OTA on various websites. Some are way cool, while some are kinda silly. The idea here though is the opportunity to customize your phone however you want it. If you want a different photo as your main image, just set any in your phone, or take one or heck, e-mail one to yourself and save it as your home screen and voila! It's done. Some additional themes allow further customization, which of course you need to experiment with yourself to find which one you like in particular. A VERY cool way to make your BB different from everyone elses, and something the iphone doesn't allow without 3rd party apps. All things considered, I am VERY happy and satisfied with the Tour. Give it more internal memory--which at this point you have to wonder WHY it wasn't--but anyway, put an optical trackpad on it and I'd dare say it'd be the perfect smartphone. At the minimum, new phones really shouldn't be released without at least 1GB internal memory--OR the ability to download everything you want directly to your expansion card (another weird quirk the Tour doesn't allow but really SHOULD, especially based on the embarassingly little on-board memory that comes stock with). It really wouldn't take much to make this about the greatest business/entertainment tool available. RIM is known for listening to consumers and giving them what they want...well guys, here it is. The next Tour should have this all ironed out. I'm locked into this phone for 2 years, but at the time when it comes for an upgrade, I certainly have plans to use nothing else but a Blackberry--and I'll stay loyal as long as they don't sit on their thumbs the way Palm did for much, much too long. Personally, I am a fan of BB's and unless something drastic happens, I don't see buying anything else for a very long time to come. Rating: 5 (Jeff Edwards, 2010-01-20) Product reviewed: BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)

Lackluster Phone I was extremely excited to own my very first Blackberry phone. I had just recently given up on my G1 phone. I was curious to see how the Blackberry compared to the G1. The phone itself serves its purpose. The screen is nice and fairly scratch resistant, unlike the G1 which was prone to scratches. The keyboard set up is great and makes texting and emailing a breeze. My only issue was with the dialing pad, when given a phone number with letters instead of numbers (i.e. 1 800 322 tour) there isn't a way to figure out what letters go to which number. I keep reading mixed reviews about the battery. I text and email pretty much throughout my day and my battery holds up very well. But, if you include phone calls and web surfing, it puts a serious strain on the battery. Any busy business person knows, either have a spare battery or have a charger, at work, in the car, and at home...nothing new there. My biggest gripe with my new Blackberry is the high cost of apps. Everything is seriously overpriced, for the simplest applications. The average price on the Blackberry market seems to be $4.99. That is one great thing about my G1. Many great apps were free and if they were priced, it was usually less than $2. The same apps I used to download on my G1 now cost me between $3-$5 on my Tour. Also, many free applications available are not compatible for the Tour. Also, you can forget about streaming youtube videos using the included application, it is not supported on the Tour. Do a web search for the headaches that people are having trying to stream videos on their Tour. Customization of the installed apps is also an issue I have. You are very limited on how you can manipulate the phone to the settings that you want most. The only way around it is to download an app for each individual item. If you want to customize settings for your alarm, buy an app. If you want to customize your calendar, buy an app. It is crazy, the phone just keeps costing money for as long as you own it. Once my contract runs out, the next great phone running the Android operating system will be high on my wish list. Rating: 3 (A. Mariscal, 2009-11-16) Product reviewed: BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)

Wouldn't get it if I had a choice Extremely poor battery life (less than a day). Many, many users, including myself, cannot be heard when using blue tooth headsets. GPS is spotty at best, and the GPS Maps application is horrible. Music player crashes every time a text message or email comes in, forcing a reboot. Reboot takes ten full minutes. Still no HTML email viewer. Rating: 2 (G.W., 2009-11-13) Product reviewed: BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)

First time BB user Recently I received a BB Tour from my work. I got it activated and have been using it for the past month or so. I'm a first time BB user so here is my observation so far. 1) As a phone, it's not very good. Voice clarity is good some times, bad at most times. 2) Contrary to what verizon claims, my calls dropped quite often. I used Sprint and ATT but never dropped a call till date. 3) Phone build quality is good. Features are good for a work based life. 4) I haven't used it to send and received SMS/MMS so no comments about it. 5) Typing is easy and track ball is supportive. In fact, you can configure how trackball moves etc 6) Screen is bright and clear even in day light 7) Verizon signal quality is good for data (not for voice) 8) If you need to send lot of emails/texts, get this phone. If not, keep away from it and get a Samsung or Sony phone. Their voice quality is 100 times better. 9) Music on headphones is excellent. I heard some online radio stations and quality is better than my car radio. Hope this helps. -Sam. Rating: 3 (SamTheTechy, 2009-10-28) Product reviewed: BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)

Great Phone Had the Blackberry Bold on ATT and switched to Verizon... My service is definitely better, but am not able to get BBMs or email while on the phone, gotta check with Verizon on that. I've had a blackberry for three years, definitely a good upgrade... The camera is awesome, BBM 5.0 is amazing... I'll never go back to another phone, Blackberry 4 Life! Rating: 4 (Miss MJ, 2009-10-12) Product reviewed: BlackBerry Tour 9630 Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)