Blackberry

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I can get e-mail and do limited surfing on my current phone - what does a Blackberry offer that is different/extra?

Does one have to use their e-mail service/servers or can it be configured to work with (say) gmail or my own mail server?

Just curious to know why they are so popular with businesses and what their USP is.

[Moscow Mule]

I can get e-mail and do limited surfing on my current phone - what does a Blackberry offer that is different/extra?

Does one have to use their e-mail service/servers or can it be configured to work with (say) gmail or my own mail server?

Just curious to know why they are so popular with businesses and what their USP is.

USP - Push mail.

If you're not in an enterprise environment (with a blackberry server attached to your mail server) you can get gmail or anything else. You set up your mail services, then the blackberry server polls your own server and pushes you the mail when it arrives (at least this is how it works on O2).

I got mine as most of my communication is done via email and I hated typing on a touch screen a la windows mobile - the full qwerty is brilliant.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Thanks for the quick answer!

So - keyboard and the fact that email's downloaded to the device?

What's the storage capacity (no doubt the answer is "it depends")

[basshead]

You can get it to keep copies on the mail server for your fat client to get, and set up filters for what you do and don't want to end up on your BlackBerry and so on. Not sure what the storage limits on the device are.

[r0bly0ns]

You can do all that on windows mobile devices as well, and there are plenty of those with a full Qwerty keyboard as well.

[Moscow Mule]

Thanks for the quick answer!
So - keyboard and the fact that email's downloaded to the device?
What's the storage capacity (no doubt the answer is "it depends")

Yup, keyboard isn't unique, but I like it.

I've got no idea on capacity - it's got a card slot in the middle of the device (8300), so I guess it's as much as you like.

You can do all that on windows mobile devices as well, and there are plenty of those with a full Qwerty keyboard as well.

I couldn't get mine (I had a jamin) to do push - it had to go and get the messages every 10 mins or so. I guess they are getting better now.

I think networks are more open to the blackberry devices WRT unlimited data tariffs though.

[r0bly0ns]

I couldn't get mine (I had a jamin) to do push - it had to go and get the messages every 10 mins or so. I guess they are getting better now.

I think networks are more open to the blackberry devices WRT unlimited data tariffs though.

Hang on, you might be right there, yep I think my phone pulls the messages rather than them being pushed to the phone like text messages