my main issue with the Blackberry, is it lacks wifi functionality.
having wireless network access availible to me at work and at home, and in most places i visit be it work related, or not.. the XDA is what i would preferr, so i can check my emails, browse the net ( i hate using books to search for information now.. long live google and wikipedia lol )
another device i think i might just get, is a skype phone ( http://tools.netgear.com/skype/ ).. unless ofcourse i find a way to load skype onto the XDA.
so year the blackberry has geek appeal or even bling appeal ( depending on weather youre at work or in "da club" lol but the XDA is just... better lol
Originally posted by PaPa SmUrFF: my main issue with the Blackberry, is it lacks wifi functionality.
having wireless network access availible to me at work and at home, and in most places i visit be it work related, or not.. the XDA is what i would preferr, so i can check my emails, browse the net ( i hate using books to search for information now.. long live google and wikipedia lol )
another device i think i might just get, is a skype phone ( http://tools.netgear.com/skype/ ).. unless ofcourse i find a way to load skype onto the XDA.
so year the blackberry has geek appeal or even bling appeal ( depending on weather youre at work or in "da club" lol but the XDA is just... better lol
If you use VOIP on a mobile device, i.e. a mobile device using GPRS, 3G, etc, you have to pay for the data transfer that the VOIP will use. This is far more expensive than justing making a mobile voice call. Especially with all the free minutes of voice calls mobile phone companies give you.
Ofcourse with my BlackBerry all my e-mail gets forwarded from my GMail account, or pushed as I believe it's called, as soon as it's received. And I access Google using it's WAP browser.
And it's just so bloody good at e-mail. If I have everything go through my GMail account it gets forwarded from that account, for free God bless Google, and I receive it straight away. The software's a pleasure to use and sending e-mails is extremely easy and a pleasure. Then also I've Yahoo Messenger on it as well.
It has no bling appeal, thank the good lord. Bling and geeky are mutually exclusive terms.
yeah i aggree VOIP is horrifically expensive... but i would be using the wifi networks that im always surrounded by for that.
do you have to pay extra on your contract to access your email?
i do so i havent bothered. im a geek, but im also a cheapscape!! lol
just got my first gmail account about 10mins ago lol
I pay O2 monthly for a mobile phone contract, which is voice calls and SMS texts, and then pay RIM £15 a month for data (it gets billed on the same bill but you have to ring up after you start your mobile contract and get it added). The £15 charge is for any sort of data, ie emails pushed (or forwarded) to my BlackBerry, WAP browsing, Yahoo Messenger messenges, etc. I think I get 5Mb for £15 which is fine for email....No graphics or attachments, that would cost a fortune. You can do emails on most phones and some PDAs but RIM's implementation on the BlackBerry is near perfect. Please note I really am only talking about emails on the move. Imagine the BlackBerry as purely a mobile email machine, it is perfect. If you use email a lot or would like to but can't because you're not always near a computer....Get a BlackBerry.
GMail or Google Mail, as new UK users would sign up, to is excellent. Completely free, nearly 3GB of online space, free email forwarding, an excellent easy to use website, brilliant.
Treos, HTC smartphones (K-Jam, Hermes...) Zaurus, Nokia 770s, UMPCs... hell,
Don't get me wrong, the Blackberry is a very good one trick pony, and needs very little user training... making it superb for managers, and people who need instant email access...It is to email what the Ipod is to mp3, but as an IT Professionals tool it doesn't cut it.
Originally posted by Psionandy: Treos, HTC smartphones (K-Jam, Hermes...) Zaurus, Nokia 770s, UMPCs... hell,
Don't get me wrong, the Blackberry is a very good one trick pony, and needs very little user training... making it superb for managers, and people who need instant email access...It is to email what the Ipod is to mp3, but as an IT Professionals tool it doesn't cut it.
"It is to email what the Ipod is to mp3"....Well apart from being standard, functional, useful, unrestrictive unlike Apple's finest product which is non-standard, restrictive, limited in functionality, etc.
You're right "the Blackberry is a very good one trick pony, and needs very little user training... making it superb for managers, and people who need instant email access"
I'm sorry I assumed all IT professionals would "need instant email access". Flip the thumb wheel, push it in, flip it again and another push in and you're ready to read your newest email. If you're getting your emails pushed to your BlackBerry it'll alert you like a SMS text message has come to your phone. Now that's good when your chatting via emails with people but also when you're sat in front of someone's PC waiting for a file to be sent to your email inbox. When the BlackBerry blips you can see it's there, no more checking your mail and hitting refresh again and again.
"IT professional's tool"???
I'm not planning on fixing things with it just communicating with people on how to fix things. - "The IT professional's choice in modern mobile telecommunication equipment"
We all agree it's a great choice as a communications device then - "making it superb for managers, and people who need instant email access" works as a telephone and SMS text too.
"Treos, HTC smartphones (K-Jam, Hermes...) Zaurus, Nokia 770s, UMPCs" - Clumsy, over-complicated, trying to do too much devices......
I'm carrying a Nokia 6230i (company phone and contract, standard issue) and a BlackBerry 7290 (I love them so much it was a personal purchase). As mentioned on another thread I've got a memory dongle on my keyring.
Anything else, laptops etc, is shared and picked up on the way out the office if needed.
I had an Acorn Pocketbook at one time. It was fairly tough, the only thing it wasn't immune from was the CRT monitor that got dropped on it. I just carry a Pentium 1 laptop everywhere now, it has less processing power than a PDA but a bigger screen and I can send messages and files to people with ZModem. If I had the money, I'd get one of the newest Psions, I think its the Series 7.
Originally posted by 3 ARM 3 ARMed.: I had an Acorn Pocketbook at one time. It was fairly tough, the only thing it wasn't immune from was the CRT monitor that got dropped on it. I just carry a Pentium 1 laptop everywhere now, it has less processing power than a PDA but a bigger screen and I can send messages and files to people with ZModem. If I had the money, I'd get one of the newest Psions, I think its the Series 7.
Wasn't the Acorn Poctetbook a rebadged Psion, a 3a maybe?
I've had Psion 3 and 5 series devices before...But only ever really treated them as toys. I'm not sure if that's because I never really had a killer use for them or because they were quite limited.
I had a Sony Clie a few years ago, again nothing but a fancy toy really.
Not that I'm going to keep harping on about it, but...I'll keep the BlackBerry - The email handling is the killer app and it's got a diary, notepad, etc...Only a little bigger than a typical mobile phone so easy to have in a pocket all the time like a mobile phone.
"It is to email what the Ipod is to mp3"....Well apart from being standard, functional, useful, unrestricted unlike Apple's finest product which is non-standard, restrictive, limited in functionality, etc.
Actually the blackberry is incredibly restricted.. can it do MS office? Browse the C4 website?, it relies on having a proprietary Blackberry server sat in the back end... How is it with IMap4 or Pop3? Can it do HTML email?
And as for functionality... it just doesn't cut it once you get outside of PIM/Email.
As an IT professional, i need to be able to send and receive Word, Excel, and Adobe files... I could do all of those on a Psion but I can do it with a VGA axim too. Connectivity is either wifi or GPRS (CF/BT phone) Oh and I can access company servers by Citrix too... or pc anywhere. And FTP and by accessing the company Intranet and extranet.. oh and i can browse real websites too, not that wap cwap...
oh and I can Print to real printers, use real word processors, run a huge amount of extra software, Watch DVDs MP3s (all work and no play ) Carry my Database files with me, keep track of time sheets..
But if you like your shiny thing fine... you clearly have something that works for you.
HTC Hermes will probably be my next one, PUSH email ala blackberry, but so much more flexability...
lol but the XDA is just... better lol
