PCMag recently reviewed the new Blackberry 7130e phone. This particular Blackberry sports a limited keyboard by comparison to its predecessors, but expands beyond the standard 12 button phone. Blackberry has added a few extra keys at its side which reduced letter amount per key to 2. The 7130e’s new keyboard is matched by predicitive text software that should limit keystrokes. The software, according to PCMag, learns your commonly used phrases and also basis predictive text off your notes and phone book entries. Testing of the predictive text was difficult given the limited time frame PCMag had with the phone.

Moving onto the email and feature functionality. They found the EV-DO network to be very speedy and the 7130e served as a useful Internet accessory to a laptop when plugged in via USB. Download speeds were from 600-800 Kbps. PCMag didn’t see an increase in speed in email exchange over older Blackberry devices running on older, slower (GPRS) networks. Unfortunately, web surfing was not a 10 fold faster as they would have expected with the 600+ Kbps download speed, but it was quicker then its brethren.

PCMag obtained a 4 hour talk time from the 7130e, but noted a competitor, the Treo, had a 5 hour talk time and more ‘fun’ features (games, etc).

The Blackberry 7130e can be picked up for $300 with a 2 year contract from Verizon. With no contract the 7130e can be snagged for a cool $450.

PCMag review score: 4/5