Gonna be getting a blackberry

[luciusad2004]

Hey guys, I'm gonna be getting a black berry curve this week probably. Does anyone hear use this device? Have any potentially helpful insight for a total newb when it comes to blackberries and smartphones in general?

Anyone know any good resources for information and news?

I'm already thinking about updating the OS to the latest version but I'm not really sure what all can be done with it.

[LiTHiUM0XiD3]

google.... lol.... there is few free apps for this phone... i personally found it bulky...
but now i miss the keyboard more than ever...
mediaplayer isnt bad....
gps (if supported... mine did...) rocks...
great phone... but remember, it was meant for business...
always be careful with your trackball, get anything in there and it is a pain to get it out(plus you might find it a bit unusable)...

[Bopher]

I use the curve and I like it a little more then the Dash I had before. The trackball is nice but don't get it wet. Mine fell off of my belt when I was running in the rain to get to the car and now the trackball works but won't click anything when I press down. I actually use the bluetooth on it with a dongle on my media server which is hooked into my stereo and can advance, rewind, play vol control music when I want. I also use it a ton for ebooks. Barnes and Noble have a compatible reader as is Mobireader. I use Mobireader all the time.

When service are you going though? I use T-Mobile and I like the fact that if I have the wifi on it uses the LAN to send and receive calls. Sometimes if your connected to a slower network you get a little skipping on the call. I would say getting internet is a must, I'm probably missing out on a lot of options (App World) with no Blackberry Internet on my account.

[luciusad2004]

I'm stuck going through Verizon since I'm getting a second line on my mom's account (saves me a lil bit of money.) I've heard they are one of the more restrictive carriers. Like, I know I don't have wifi. I think she said I have unlimited data so that'll be nice. How do you like reading ebooks on the phone? Seems like the small screen would get frustrating.

I did a lil googling earlier and found some stuff but nothing to great. I figured Id ask on here, being a tech related website I assumed at least a few people have experience with this phone.

[Bopher]

I think verizon allows for GPS so that will be nice. So will the unlimited internet. I like reading on the phone, the screen is easy on the eyes. I set the font point to 13 and I don't feel any eye strain.

[luciusad2004]

I think verizon allows for GPS so that will be nice. So will the unlimited internet. I like reading on the phone, the screen is easy on the eyes. I set the font point to 13 and I don't feel any eye strain.

Cool, I'll keep that in mind. It would be nice to have something to do on lunch breaks at work and I always tell myself I need to read more often (but never actually do.)

I think verizon has a GPS app type deal but it costs extra. I don't travel that much though so I'm not worried about it.

[Bopher]

I probably use the reader too much. I would say check out blackberry.com and browse though App World but you can't see whats inside unless you're on the blackberry. The phone was originally my wifes but my Dash kept shutting down at random times so she downgraded and gave me the Curve. I love the phone and the speaker isn't to bad to listen to some tunes on.

[luciusad2004]

I probably use the reader too much. I would say check out blackberry.com and browse though App World but you can't see whats inside unless you're on the blackberry. The phone was originally my wifes but my Dash kept shutting down at random times so she downgraded and gave me the Curve. I love the phone and the speaker isn't to bad to listen to some tunes on.

so the music player isn't horrible? I was thinking about throwing a memory card in it and using it to carry around a few GBs of music since I don't own a PMP.

[Bopher]

Not bad at all. I have a 2gig in mine and I think with a certain OS update you can go up to 16gig. But make sure that if you upgrade Verizon will still cover the phone. You can use standard headphones with the phone to listen to music.

[luciusad2004]

Not bad at all. I have a 2gig in mine and I think with a certain OS update you can go up to 16gig. But make sure that if you upgrade Verizon will still cover the phone. You can use standard headphones with the phone to listen to music.

Cool, Thanks. I think Verizon offers the 4.5 update on their website so I imagine it should still be covered if I get it directly from them. I'm wondering If I can just use the blackberry software downloadable from blackberry.com or I'f Verizon has something special cooked up that they insist on being used. I know they like to do things like that. I wish I could find a carrier that was just straight up a carrier. Didn't care what phone you used or what software you used or what you did with it as long as you payed for their service. IMO that would be the best carrier ever. (So long as their service didn't blow.)

[Bopher]

That would be nice, but with not everyone using 1 network system makes it harder to compete. T-Mobile and ATT use GSM, Sprint and Verzion/Alltel are using CDMA. And thats just the big major compaines. Sometimes you can get your carrier to unlock the phone for you but a lot of the time they will fight you.

[luciusad2004]

That would be nice, but with not everyone using 1 network system makes it harder to compete. T-Mobile and ATT use GSM, Sprint and Verzion/Alltel are using CDMA. And thats just the big major compaines. Sometimes you can get your carrier to unlock the phone for you but a lot of the time they will fight you.

If sprint and verizon using similar networks does that mean I can get unlocked sprint phones and they would work on the verizon network? Like If I wanted a palm pre or something in the future. I couldn't find a lot of offerings that I liked from Verizon and I'm still not sure If I'm gonna like the curve. The store is to cramped and rushed to get a real sense of whether or not you'll like a given phone. It'll probably be a week or so until I really get a feeling of what I think of the blackberry. It looks promising though.

[Bopher]

From what I understand yes. my Dash was said to be unlocked but with no ATT here I couldn't check to see if it was. But ATT was showing up on my "Network Selection" screen.

[ownaginatious]

Man... I wish I'd researched a bit more before buying my smart phone.

I got the iPhone 3G S because everyone (including my parents) kept saying iPhones were the best phones ever.

Little did I know, Apple locked everything up to make sure I couldn't use it with anything aside from iTunes (really annoying when you're a Linux user, and there is no iTunes :(). Apple also seems to want to charge me for every freakin useful application out there. I don't want to pay for things which are free on other platforms :(. Even after jailbreaking it, there are still features the jail-breaking guys want me to pay for. I'm hoping someone hacks Android on to it *crosses fingers*.

I would trade this thing for any other smart phone right now (not with Windows Mobile though :p) if it hadn't been so damn expensive...

Some of those new BlackBerries look awfully nice and actually support standard video files (.avi :p) :(.

[luciusad2004]

I don't really follow phone tech all that much but android looks pretty promising, though everything I've read said its not quite "there" yet. I would love to have it assuming the carriers didn't lock it down to much and I had free reign to customize it to my hearts content as I would with a Linux based desktop OS. I've seen some nice looking phones on gagdet blogs though that have customized version of android.

The iPhone is pretty and a nice machine but I really hated being locked in to the iTunes ecosystem. As far as winmobile, I don't think I've ever heard a good thing about it.

I think the big thing the iPhone has goin for it is the GIANT app market. Its part of the reason i thought about an ipod touch. Even if most of the stuff is crap, they still got a lot of decent to good apps and it seems alot of the apps on iphone are "better" than apps on competing platforms. I read complaints on some forums that the blackberry tends to get the reject apps that are multiplatform but for some reason they suck on blackberry even though they rock on other devices.

[luciusad2004]

Little update, I got the phone and love it. Considering I'm down a laptop this thing is a life saver and I've been using it for everything. (Even checked TBCS from it though admittedly tbcs isn't that great on the blackberry browser and I couldn't manage to post anything.) I haven't attempted to get it to link up with Ubuntu yet though Google tells me its not a walk in the park. I've been using it with windows 7. As mentioned above not alot of free apps but I have found some free apps that are pretty cool.


Pandora
AIM (not a great app but being able to chat over data is awesome)
Facebook (see above)

Ok, Ok so the only cool App I have is Pandora, sue me. What I really need is a twitter client because I don't want to have twitter sending me constant text messages and the existing twitter apps suck. I hear RIM is putting an app out soon.

So far the phone rocks though, I had no clue it would be this useful. I almost got a dumb phone because i thought I would get "No use" out of all these features. I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of what it can do. I even got the software to tether it with my comp, though I haven't looked in to what Verizon charges for that and I don't plan on doing it.

I'm looking to get themes but I'm always nervous about purchasing any sorta cell phone "customization." Never really know what your buying. ATM ima see what I can find online for free. Phone looks good enough that I can't see paying more than a dollar or two for a fancy skin. The only thing I don't like graphically speaking is the crappy icons that look like they were ripped straight out of the 90's.

[BerticusPryme]

I worked for T-mobile for a bit. here are a few words of advice on your new purchase and I am going to stess some that have already been stated. make sure to keep the trackball clean and be easy on it. The pearl/curve have known issues with the trackball failing. Also getting a memory card would be the first thing I did. The pearl/curve only have 64mb of ram in them that is used to run the phone as well as store things. eventually the device wills tart locking up and deleting your call logs and texts messages. so when you ge tthe ard make sure you set it to put the pictures and anything you recieve to go to the memory card.. other than that it is a great phone.
oh btw hackaday did a review where someone unlucked the download cap on the phone. most of the phones will onyl download like 2.2 or 2.3 mb. you can check it out here http://hackaday.com/2009/09/01/blackberry-download-limit-remover/

[luciusad2004]

I worked for T-mobile for a bit. here are a few words of advice on your new purchase and I am going to stess some that have already been stated. make sure to keep the trackball clean and be easy on it. The pearl/curve have known issues with the trackball failing. Also getting a memory card would be the first thing I did. The pearl/curve only have 64mb of ram in them that is used to run the phone as well as store things. eventually the device will start locking up and deleting your call logs and texts messages. so when you get the card make sure you set it to put the pictures and anything you receive to go to the memory card.. other than that it is a great phone.
oh btw hackaday did a review where someone unlocked the download cap on the phone. most of the phones will only download like 2.2 or 2.3 MB. you can check it out here http://hackaday.com/2009/09/01/blackberry-download-limit-remover/

So the built in storage is also used by the phone for temporary memory? I didn't know that. I was planning on getting a memory card eventually but I guess now its on the top of my "To Get" list. My buddy says he has a 2GB card that he isn't using that I can have for 5 bucks or so. I might check out prices and see what can be had at what cost. I might want more than two GB. Can I move already downloaded stuff on to the card or will I have to redownload/resync? What all gets stored on the card? Just synced files or will it store all of my messages and whatnot as well?

I'll have to keep the info about the trackball in mind. It feels kinda iffy as it is, is it something that just stops working all of the sudden or does it slowly start to crap out.

Thanks for the insight.

[BerticusPryme]

yeah you can move over the stuff to the card once you put it in. Thats no big deal. you can tell it to store pictures,music,ringtones,txtmessages and all right on the card. also best thing for the trackball keep the phone restarted. usually every friday I would take the battery out of mine for about 30 seconds then then put it all back together. it restarts all the software and gives it a fresh bootup on the wireless network. helped with my trackball quite a bit doing that. Then I got rid of my blackberry and couldnt be happier. heheheh but thats just me.

[luciusad2004]

yeah you can move over the stuff to the card once you put it in. Thats no big deal. you can tell it to store pictures,music,ringtones,txtmessages and all right on the card. also best thing for the trackball keep the phone restarted. usually every friday I would take the battery out of mine for about 30 seconds then then put it all back together. it restarts all the software and gives it a fresh bootup on the wireless network. helped with my trackball quite a bit doing that. Then I got rid of my blackberry and couldnt be happier. heheheh but thats just me.

Lol, thanks for the all the help. May I ask what you replaced it with?

[BerticusPryme]

a samsung rant. a fairly basic phone. I actually like it more than I did my blackberry and actualy like it more than any other phone I have had. If anyone has sprint I would gladly recomend it.