Hi Aaron,

The gain of the BJT drops, and also the recovery from saturation takes longer.

Regards,
Vivek

Hi Aaron,

The BJT is getting a bit into saturation mode with your choice of VBE and VCE although it is not yet deep in saturation if you are seeing reasonably high gain. In order to be sure that you really have reasonable gain, you need to first figure out how much lower you are allowed to get down with the VCE (accounting for variations in process, temperature, supply, and signal levels), and then also looking at the small-signal bandwidth in the worst case. If your VCE stays in the range of 0.4 V - 0.5 V, I would imagine that you might get away with it, but probably, your circuit will start to fail in terms of gain. I would check.

Regards,
Vivek

Back to basics here guys -

1. Get a set of bias curves for the transistor.
2. Impose a load line on the bias curve set.
3. Impose an input signal onto the input and output of the load line and bias curve set.

That should answer your question if you are remaining within a desireable operating range. You are very much "inside the diode curve" but may still be within the "flat region" of the bias curve.

A very "1965" methodology to answer a question in 2008, but it works.