Blackberry Phone Group

<p> If you are using the Blackberry 8800 series and are a member of FMLS in Atlanta, GA there is good news! No more syncing every night! It should be here in a matter of months and will give us the freedom Treo users have been enjoying the last few years. I personally couldn&#39;t stand my Treo and went back to the BB and nightly syncs as I love the ease of the BB for email communciation. It is my understanding that we will have a key fob that will provide the technology to do this. </p>

<p> I wrote this review when I first got my BlackBerry 8830 about 6 months ago... This is my third BlackBerry. I started almost 5 years ago with the 7510, then after two years I traded up to the 7520. I had virtually no problems with either one. They were both rock-solid, robust business tools, but frankly, both had zero &quot;WOW&quot; factor. When the 7520 developed a software glitch, I couldn&#39;t get it resolved after a couple hours&#39; worth of discussions with Sprint/BB Customer Service. It was a minor problem but an irritant to me, so I mentioned that my contract was up, and that my colleagues were all using another carrier. They switched me to a different person who suggested I look at the new 8830. I liked what I saw. The screen is bright and colorful, almost plasma-like. It&#39;s very bright and much easier to read than the older models, and photos and attachments (like .pdf and .doc) open easily and are much easier to read. </p> <p class="c1"> The TrackBall is a welcome improvement over the roller wheel and select button on the older models. It is located right where it should be for easy, one-handed operation. I got used to it in just a few minutes. </p> <p> I&#39;ve gotten used to the full QWERTY keyboard over the years, and even though my two previous BBs were rather larger because of it, the ease of composing and responding to Email were worth the extra bulk. The 8830 is thinner and lighter, and I have no problem with the slightly different keyboard. I&#39;m an old dog and I just don&#39;t want to bother with learning a new keyboard. Some of the BB models have the smaller &quot;intuitive&quot; keyboard, but I&#39;m happy with the full QWERTY. The 8830 has speed-dial programming and voice activated dialing, as well as speakerphone capability. Of course it has the PIM tools you expect, including a calendar, a tasks list, a memo pad, an alarm, and a calculator. You can always download more applications. The BlackBerry Desktop software makes it quick and easy to synch the BB to my Outlook Calendar, Tasks and Contact database. </p> <p class="c1"> I totally love the fact that you can plug the included USB cable into your laptop, and your BB 8830 becomes a wireless modem. I plugged it into my new Acer Ferrari (an amazing mini-laptop) and although I haven&#39;t logged a lot of time on the modem function yet, the Sprint network seems to be quite speedy. It will definitely come in handy when I travel, and now I can forget about getting an &quot;Air Card,&quot; which will save me a muncha bunny. </p> <p> The Bluetooth® works great. I have a Plantronics Voyager 500 headset, which is light and comfortable, and allows me to use both my BB and my office phone. I doubt I&#39;ll ever need it, but for you globe-trotters, it has dual network capability, so you can use this one device inside the U.S. and while traveling outside of North America. The phone supports both CDMA and GPRS/GSM networks . Generally, I have little use for GPS capability, but if you&#39;re in an unfamiliar area, you can zoom in on neighborhoods and see street layouts, even without the extra-cost BlackBerry maps and other location-based services. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <strong>In summary, I guess it&#39;s just a matter of preference or being familiar with what you know. My move to the BB 8830 has been great so far. I have yet to run into any problems. I&#39;ll be attending the National Association of REALTORS Conference next month, and I&#39;ll be able to put the modem function through its paces.</strong> </p> <p> <strong>If you&#39;re looking for a smart phone that is light, intuitive and easy to use, I can highly recommend the BB 8830. People who aren&#39;t familiar with it are impressed, and I must admit, the &quot;WOW&quot; factor gives me a chuckle.</strong> </p> <p> <br /> <br /> </p>

<p> OK, here&#39;s a treat for BB owners, and another reason to go with the BB if you&#39;re planning on buying a smartphone. </p> <p> Please go to the Technology Groups and read my latest post about Jott, the new free voice-to-text service. As a BB owner, you need to know that Jott has a unique and free service just for us! </p> <p> Jott has a special feature for BlackBerry <b>8800, 8300 (Curve), and 8100 (Pearl)</b> users. I&#39;m so intrigued and enthused about it, I want to get the scoop out right now. </p> <div> With Jott, you sign up for the (FREE) service by going to <a href="http://www.jott.com/bb">www.jott.com</a> , and set up an account. You can then upload your selected contacts from Outlook to their server. Here&#39;s a description of the service from their Website: </div> <div> </div> <div> Jott is a simple, but very powerful tool that will let you reply to emails on your BlackBerry just using your voice - either speaking directly into your BlackBerry, or while wearing a Bluetooth headset. It is seamlessly integrated into the email application you already use, and is a huge leap forward for BlackBerry lovers in three ways: first, it is 3-5 times faster than &#39;thumbing&#39; text; two, you won&#39;t be known for sending just terse replies because you don&#39;t want to thumb type out a normal email message; and three, you will be safer because you won&#39;t have to take your eyes off the road. </div> <div> </div> <div> So far I&#39;ve found that the replies that I send to my Emails are not perfect, but you can spell out the word and fix that. And they aren&#39;t reliably quick (depends on how busy they are at the moment), so I&#39;m not using it for time-sensitive replies. </div> <div> </div> <div> But it saves lots of thumb-strokes and I love it! </div>