Attention all geek friends of mine, and any non-geek with a Blackberry, and any random reader with a Blackberry.I'm thinking about purchasing a Blackberry, but I want to know if people have any particular praise or scorn for specific models.
I'm also thinking about purchasing either an unlocked phone or a Cingular-specific phone from eBay since my Cingular contract is not up for another 10 months. If anyone has any experience in purchasing phones not from their cell provider and actually getting them to work well, I'd appreciate hearing your story.
NYC
4 comments:
I unlocked my cingular treo. I had to buy a $15 program that read the unlock code off the phone OS, but it worked fine...
Kathy just got the Blackberry 8700g (with T Mobile), the corresponding model to the 8700c with Cingular. She loves it and is a big improvement over her old cell phone (not a PDA). She can get her email and surf the internet, very handy for her work when she's out of her office (which can be frequent). If you want more details, I can email you.
SMY
Hi Curt - I have had an old Blackberry 7290 thru work since 2005. The plan is thru Cingular (soon to be AT&T, I presume) and here are my observations.
Having a BB is very handy, which is why they are so ubiquitous. Being able to stay plugged into the office while in airports, etc. is a great convenience. You may already have one for work, so this is may not be relevant if you're looking to get a personal BB.
Getting one thru Cingular/AT&T is a good move as that provider has great international coverage, which has paid off for me many times over as I've traveled about Europe, and recently to Mexico. I typically don't use the phone capabilities much internationally, but sending emails/smss and being able to use the browser is very convenient.
Not sure if it's the phone or Cingular in general but the 7290 sucks as a phone. I get dropped quite often and ergonomically, it's an awful device. It gets very hot if you hold it up to your ear for extended time. In fairness, I've not invested in one of those bluetooth headsets, so that may make the ergonomics more bearable.
Using the qwerty keypad to dial numbers not in your speed dial is also a pain. I have heard that some of the newer models (like the 7130G) have better phone ergonomics but at the expense of the qwerty keyboard. I know some folks who have a BB and a phone, which seems crazy to me, so I just deal with the ergonomics of the BB and just carry it.
One other handy feature is that you can easily email pics to yourself and save them on your BB, so you always have a portable photo album.
Good luck.
Laurence bought a Sprint phone for $20 on Ebay since he had lost his and didn't want to buy a new contract, etc. It works great!!! Better than his fancy old one, in fact. Hope Cheryl's feeling good.
-Angelique
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