any info on pros and cons of blackberry

pedigreeblu

hi,,,i cant seem to find anything about the blackberry system,,,im sure there must be something on here somewhere, can some1 point me in right direction or can someone furnish me with some general info on using ,,costing etc,,of blackberry,,,or are there any better/cheaper alternatives...

rwgibson98

Think it depends on what you want from the service.

Many phones can access POP3 email over GPRS.

Blackberrys are usually used in a corporate environment, allowing employees secure access to mail held on an Exchange server. This is not usually a requirement of an individual.

So, is your question "I want a Blackberry, where can I get one?" or "it would be useful to check email whilst on the move, how can I do it?"


https://www.blackberry.com

pedigreeblu

i want a phone that i can use as a organiser / diary..ive looked at some of the electronic organisers but feel that a lot of the info in them would be duplicated in my phone,,so i want one device that will do the lot,,,.to send and recieve emails with qwerty keyboard,,im on orange at the moment,,,whats would you suggest

rwgibson98

Again, many phones have diaries or organisers.

I first used mine "in anger" when I was able to link my old Nokia 6310i with Outlook on my PC. The power of using my PC to keep my appointments, reminders (birthdays etc), and address book tidy AND BACKED UP, and then taking the phone on the road was brilliant. If you have a PC, get a cable or bluetooth connection, and look at Nokia's FREE DataSuite.

My Orange 6600 can easily check my Orange.net email over GPRS, I haven't tried it for my other mail accounts. It doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard, but conversely I can fit the phone in my pocket.

steve_r123

How about something along the line of an Orange SPV, http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/show/handset/orange_spv_m1500/detail/upgrade

This is basically a PDA with phone funtionality, and has a qwerty keyboard on the touchscreen.

I haven't got one, but have used one and they seem pretty good. You can put all the normal PDA stuff on it like Sat Nav etc, and get all your emails, browse t'internet etc....

goldentouch

I've got a sidekick II. Blowed if I've figured it out yet though

I would love to sync my calender etc.

FF99

Main con of Blackberry is addiction !

rwgibson98

If you are serious about investing in a mobile/PDA, you could do worse than spend £4 on the March 2006 issue of PC Pro magazine. (Although they have an excellent website archive, the most recent articles aren't on line yet, meaning a trip to the newsagents.)

There's a good article reviewing several models, including the Blackberry, Nokia Communicator and Compaq iPaq, and discussing the technology.

Advantages of Blackberry include "push notification" - if someone sends you an email, your 'Berry tells you immediately, you don't have to keep dialling up to check. Also, when you're reading an email, it sends it down to your handset a few kilobytes at a time, rather than all at once. So you could read the start of the email, decide that you don't want to read any more, and you haven't been forced to accept megabytes of slow and expensive GPRS data.

Drawbacks include the cost, and the fact that other gadgets can do more (e.g. GPS/sat nav, Microsoft Office document capabilities).

When making your decision, think about the things that are important to you now. Do you want to remain on a certain mobile network? That might restrict your choice of handsets. Do you want to change your email address, or would you want to have a new one for mobile usage?

As I said earlier, you may find that a mid-range Nokia phone might be enough for your needs.

Also in PC Pro (and this really isn't a plug), is an article discussing how easy it is to suddenly find a mobile bill of hundreds of pounds, incurred by a few minutes of talktime and a few hours on GPRS downloads.

pennypincher_2

The only cost effective consumer choice for Blackberry is T-Mobile,whilst the network is'nt everyones cuppa o' tea you can buy a Blackberry without any need for business registration.The plans are reasonable too,especially compared to the others networks offerings,Orange don't offer the product to ordinary consumers,Vodafone plans are steep,o2 are aimed at business power users, only leaving T-Mobile who can supply one on a £25 a month plan with a huge amount of data thrown in. Currently have a Vodafone one though would urge anyone needing one of these to go via T-Mobile,the whole package offered by them is so consumer friendly and the support for queries after sale is outstanding.

rwgibson98

goldentouch wrote:

...I would love to sync my calender etc...

This review suggests that you can't synchronise your calendars between your phone and Outlook. Perhaps in a later software release?