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Anyone here know much about Blackberrys?


Super 80

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As the last man on earth to have owned and used a pager and as the man who unsuccessfully waged a violent jihad against wireless data costs, $10 ringtone downloads and $75 text messaging bills on company phones I was not delighted to find out I am getting a Blackberry - since phoning me at 11:00 at night and people periodically showing up on my door at all hours just wasn't enough of an invasion on my personal time.

Some guy from Telus is coming next week to set them up and I can have any Blackberry offered by Telus. I went to look at the Blackberry's at Futureshop but all they had were plastic demos that didn't do anything. The kid at the Telus Store seemed to know more about which phones had appeared in which gangsta rap music videos than anything technical about the phones.

I used a Blackberry a couple of years ago for a few weeks, but only as loaner phone and really didn't care about it either way.

Does anyone have a particular opinion of individual models?

The CDMA\GSM hybrids look interesting, but I understand they only support European GSM bands so I couldn't just pop my AT&T sim card into it.

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I'm partial to the Pearl because of its size - it fits in my pant pocket and I don't have to use the belt attachment.

I essentially only use my blackberry as a phone and for email. As such, I've taken a package from Rogers for phone and email.......I don't otherwise have access to the internet except for the sending and receiving of emails.

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I prefer the Curve to the Pearl, but only because it has the full Qwerty keyboard.

My wife has the 8830 World Edition and absolutely loves it too. As a realtor, she's on the thing all day, every day. And with her not being technologically savvy, it had to be fairly easy to set up and use and most of all be reliable. It is definitely all of that.

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I've had a Pearl 8100 for close to a year and I am very happy with it. I tried the Curve for two weeks and handed it back to the IT guys, because it was just too big for my liking. They gave me the Pearl and I haven't looked back. It took me all of 3 emails to get used to the typing style on the Pearl, and the smart type feature gets the words right virtually every time. It even learns the many technical terms and acronyms that plague the aviation industry! wink.gif The Storm looks pretty cool but if it doesn't have the wide range of applications that are available for the iPhone, then I will hold out for the iPhone when my next upgrade comes through.

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I have the 8830 on the Bell system. We have a mixture of the same units on Bell and Rogers systems within the flight department. Overall we find that the Bell units seem to have better coverage. I don't use mine as a phone (I don't like holding a brick to my ear). I use a seperate cell phone for that. I have used my 8830 in Europe with excellent coverage.

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I have a Curve 8310 from Rogers for myself and I am very happy with the product. Its smaller than 8800 but still has full keyboard.

For this analysis just a few things to note:

- I assume your getting this because your company is handing you one. If so you should check with the IT dept to confirm that BB Storm will be support. The newer Storm and Bold have different interface and operating system technology so a lot of IT departments must upgrade their BES systems (Blackberry Enterprise Servers) to handle these products. At my company, the Bold is supported only because a lot of partners got one direct from Rogers. This forced the IT department to complete an implementation a lot sooner than planned.

- There are lots of little applets for the BB. My favs are the RSA token that allows me to log into the work network. Rather than carrying a token I now have the BB handle the applet. There are other applets that allow you to upload your PNR information for air travel, hotel, and car rentals onto the BB.

- The BB can be set to automatically shut off and start off at specified times. I have mine set to auto off at 7pm and auto on at 7am. This allows me the manage my work life balance and wife relationships.

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Go for the bold. it is a 3G phone so data access is faster. The Storm has a touch screen and is harder to type on than the regular keyboard on the other phones.

Check out www.crackberry.com and ask any questions there. They are a friendly community with over 200,000 BB users.

I have a Curve 8310 and have had for over a year now and love it. the Pearl my wife has is ok but I hate typing on it.

There are plenty of good deals to be had out there right now so look around. Here in Canada Rogers is the best to go for since the phones are GSM and not CDMA so they can be used anywhere in the world.

Good hunting.

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www.blackberryforums.com is the best source of information. I have an 8830 from telus and am very disappointed at the number of dropped calls, and the number of times the data service dropps off line, and has to be reset, either by them or me. If I wanted to stay with CDMA after my contract, I would try to get Bell or one of the new players to match my telus deal. But I see an I phone in my future, and wi-fi is one major reason.

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Looks like it is a red pearl for me, the Curve (the only other practical alternative) is just too large. Interestingly the women are going for the Curve and the men are going for the pearl. We can pocket the Pearl and the women can stuff the much larger Curve in their purse.

Although I can already tell what is ahead, since 6PM today I have 7 emails from people who already have their Blackberry.

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