[Hands0n]

A good friend of mine thrust a used Blackberry in my hands today. It is a 7230 model, one that is a bit long in the tooth these days and succeeded by several new models. I was curious, and wanted to check one out with a view to perhaps moving all my business use over to one, hopefully a 3G model if I can just get to grips with this 7230 model.

I have had to set a few BBs up with a BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) for a couple of clients, and while a bit fiddly in places it is a straightforward process. A lot is done for you in the way of configuration files coming down from the server. Not too many finger-pokes later and the device is working.

In my case, here, I wanted to see if I could get a BB working off my T-Mobile 3GB-per-month Web N Walk Pro account. That does not have any Blackberry support enabled. I just wanted to see if I could get the beastie to get into POP3 mail servers and suchlike.

Cutting to the chase, the answer is forget it! The Blackberry network architecture is so hard-coded for server-delivered configs and content that manually setting up the device to work on a mobile network is impossible. There is tons of help out on the Internet, but if you don't have BB enabled on your mobile account you can forget using it for any kind of data at all. It just makes calls and exchanges texts, thats it!

After playing around for a while, and getting absolutely nowhere, I decided to pop a T-Mobile PAYG SIM into the handset and get my normal T-Mob 3G facility back in operation. Things didn't get any better, and a call to T-Mobile CS, while sympathetic, did not help as they "do not support BB on PAYG", only on Contract (no you dont, unless I pay more for the BB add-on).

So there it is, the BB is not for anyone who is not going to spend many pounds a month on top of their contract to be able to get Push (or Pull) eMail on their handset. Vodafone charge £15, and I'm not really sure what T-Mobile charge. Whatever it is, it is too expensive for my use.

Another one for the "Rejected" bits box in my study :( But it was a worthwhile exercise as I now know what to not bother with in my search for something better than the feeble built-in email clients in the typical mobile phone handset.

A quick view of eBay reveals that the BB 7230 goes for something under £50, which is astonishing considering the functionality of the device. It is not a toy, it is a hard working tool. But as such, it is entirely committed to business or users with high disposable incomes.

For now, I will persist with Googlemail's mobile client until something useful comes along. Clunky, but it works.

[miffed]

I'm using "Mail for exchange" on the E61 , and have a free "mail2web live" account ....Free app , free acount
...Then , I set gmail to forward to the mail2web account - simple, effective and free !
now the interesting part ! - mail seems to arrive on my E61 a few seconds BEFORE it appears in the Gmail inbox - even though this is not logically possible
For example , while sitting at my computer , I'll buy something on Ebay ,and hear my phone announce a mail almost instantly - so I'll open Gmail in my browser on the computer to read it , and it won't be there yet , - i'll click "refresh" a few seconds later and there it is . but it appears on the phone first
I also used the trial version of "roadsync" on the 9500 , and this gave a similar thing , even over bog standard GPRS , although larger mails are a bit slower obvioulsy

[gorilla]

I must say that I've never been taken with Blackberrys. I just dont see the point of push email, and there are better phones on the market. As a business user, I'll really only be interested in seeing email instantly while sat at my desk, not while I'm commuting or meeting clients. If I do want to check my email, I'm quite capabale of opening an email client on my phone and letting it do all the 'technical' bits like logging in and pulling my email down for me. I suppose you need to weigh up how quickly one needs to see the email.

[bsrjl1]

I loved my Blackberry 7100x as an e-mail device, but it was useless as a phone. Same problem with the Vario2. The best push mail I've found is Nokia M4E on the N80 (only v1.3.1 as >v1.5 will only install on the E-series).

My company doesn't allow any other external access to the mail server, you have to be plugged in or on the VPN. So this is an absolute godsend while I'm working away or not at the desk. I'm tempted to buy either an E65 or E61i to be able to use the latest version of M4e as it works so well!

[miffed]

I think push mail is one of those things that you don't appreciate / see the point of until you try it
People that haven't used it tend to use words like "intrusive" and question what benefit there could possibly be over fetching your mail in the conventional sense - but those that have tried it almost always seem to be converted to its merits
Personally I think its great - more than a few times now my phone has bleeped (in a "catchphrase" stylee :D ) - I have looked at the phone and it has been a mail I have been waiting for , and sometimes it is stuff I have been holding up work in anticipation of - so getting that mail , maybe half an hour before I would have thought to have checked my mail conventionally (or longer if I was too busy to check )

OK so if you spend you life planted at you desk , then Push mail isn't really worth much - but for anyone with legs , it is useful to say the least