Since I am out of my office more than I am in it on some days, I have been entertaining the idea of getting a Blackberry. My cell phone is with Verizon and their network has been by far superior to others so I would like to stay with them. My main goal of this is to be able to check email while out on the road. Since I have Cox as my ISP, I figure as long as I have web access I can log on to Cox and access my email. However, after reading some info on the Blackberry it sounds like I can have email forwarded directly to the PDA from my computer. I am not a computer guru so this sounds too good to be true. Any thought/experience with these things?

The geeks at the Verizon store were pretty much useless. You guys seem to know a little bit about everything so help a brotha out.

Well, I guess what you really need to ask yourself is how accessible do you want to be? Is it imperative that you be able to check your mail every 10 or 15 minutes or can it wait until once a day and be checked via laptop? Most Starbucks have WiFi hotspots and you can sit down have a cup of coffee and check your mail. Also consider what other functions you want it to peform. I carried a Palm Pilot for years because I had all my contacts on it, could sync it up while grabbing a bite to eat at the hotel and check email real quick. I also did my expenses on it and had them emailed right over to accounting so all I had to do was drop off my receipts when I got back in the office. We use the Blackberry now in the office but only for email, we also carry Nextels. My position requires that I be accessible 24/7/365.

Damn it you got my geek going!! There are a lot of options, if your looking to just replace your cell phone with a newer gadget and don't really need to be accessible 24/7 get a Razr or a Treo with the built in Palm fucntionality and use a laptop to check your email once in awhile well taking breaks. Maybe a Sidekick would be the ticket for you. I loved mine but hated T-Mobile. I spent the last 4 years as a road warrior (75% travel) and have run to both extemes.

Sorry this was so long... I feel that most of these purchases are made as impulse buys and most people dont really spend the time thinking about how they will relaly use the product. Think that through and the decision should be really easy to make.

My best,
Mike D.

I have an older Palm Pilot now. My main need is to be able to check email surf the web. As a Realtor, it would be great to have access to the MLS while out on the road. I use the hot spots now but I don't always have the time to go inside, set up the computer and sit there and reply. I'm also thinking that a Blackberry-type PDA would be great to keep me in touch while on vacations, trips up north etc(That part of the job sucks...but what can you do?). I could check email regardless if there is a hot spot or not.

I thought about the Sidekick, but sticking with Verizon as a service provider is important to me.

We've had people at work with the whole gammut of palm, IPaq, smart phones, and now blackberry. If you are primarily looking for email away from the office it is probably the best of the bunch. Simple, good battery life, excellant range (better than most cell phones). The qwerty keyboard makes it reasonably easy to type outbound email. Having one device that does both phone and pda is a real bonus, although as a phone it kinda feels like holding a porkchop to your face. I have a bluetooth model that allows me to use a wireless headset - works very well.

Just be careful of the monthly charges. Most vendors up here charge for your data transfers on top of your phone costs.

Steve

I used the Blackberry for a year and really liked it. The reason I no longer have it is because of the phone service I had with it (T-mobile). Their coverage area is sparse and I needed better coverage. While I was in Germany the coverage was great, but I wasn't there that often.

I considered getting another Blackberry but ended up with a Razor from Cingular. If I really needed to be connected all the time I would get another Blackberry and look for the best coverage.

Mike

T-Mobile has the ability to knock verizon out of the water, but the lose bunch of people through hidden overage charges.

my girlfriend and I thought it was real intresting how a number, 800 was really only 376.

i'm in the wrong math class...


anyway verizon rocks....

I looked into a blackberry for nextel, but decided on keeping my ruggedized phone (since I put it through hell daily) and purchased a palm tungsten c (the one with a qwerty keyboard, full color, internal wifi) and just set up my office with wifi, as well as home. This way I could just migrate from home to office and use it on both networks. Also works fine on Panera's wifi hotspots for free. I personally chose the palm so I could run pocket quickbooks and have every customer record on me when I am on the road.

The Blackberry is great. You install a mail redirector on your home PC and when a message comes in it automatically forwards to your blackberry it will open some light attachments like word or excel.

i use both the Blackberry at work and the Treo 650 for personal use.

if you want to store and manipulate data, then the treo maybe is n't the greatest solution. it does phone and web stuff well. touch screen, high res. and is way more fun than a blackberry.

our blackberry's are thru nextel and so there's that advantage.. boring as hell though.

both keyboards work ok but treos is a bit better. and you can load all kind of programs on a treo. lots of non corporate support.

and you can get them thru verizon. my carrier. best coverage. good camera.

QUOTE (Travis Neff @ Aug 16 2005, 07:21 AM)

The Blackberry is great. You install a mail redirector on your home PC and when a message comes in it automatically forwards to your blackberry it will open some light attachments like word or excel.

Travis,

Would this eliminate the need for me to log on to Cox's website to check my email while I am out and about? I would basically get notified on my Blackberry that I have email much like a text message on my cellphone?

MW

yes.

if you have the Cox e-mail integrated in your Outlook program, and set it to go and look for mail autmoatically...it will notify that program that you have mail and forward that mail to your blackberry

not only will you be notified, you will have the actual message to read without jumping loops and setting things on fire..

Yep, when you install the program you can install a desktop client, which you have to leave your mail program open on your home PC. When a message comes to your mailbox a copy of that message goes to your blackberry. It sucks for spam, but there is filters to cut down on it.

Also ISP's like earthlink provide an enterprise or server redirection so you don't need to worry about your home PC even being turned on.