Blackberry... How does it compare REALLY?

bkbroil · #1 06-23-2004, 10:53 AM

A couple of friends and family have recently recieved Blackberrys and I see how excited they are to use them. I've been wondering "Are these better than having a PPC and a cell phone?"
Dale Coffig of PocketPCPassion is answering that question for me. He has recieved a Blackberry and he is comparing the Blackberry against his current PPC. Check out his ongoing thoughts of the device. Do any of you own a Blackberry? What do you think of it?
I must admit I was pretty excited when I open the box up. The device really does have a pretty slick look to it. It feels very nice in your hand and being a belt clip kind of guy I like the holster. However I was unable to get the 7230 to work out of the box and was glad to have 24-7 phone support by T-Mobile. They promptly ratcheted me up to upper tiers of tech support to finally end up with RIM support directly. I thought I was done with being on the phone. The good news was the 7230 was up and running as a standalone device... the bad news I now needed to get it to connect in with the Exchange 2003 Server. This is when I found out that my Exchange Server IT guys needed me to setup a one hour appointment for getting the 7230 configured for my account. After my second day the product was finally up and connected for email. I had it holstered and ready to roll.
Well it didn't take two days however to learn very quickly that the phone function of the product was to say the least limiting. Using the 7230 as a phone became almost an immediate disappointment. As a phone it is pretty klutzy to use but then again it was the other PIM functions that the BlackBerry shines in. Well I will be on the road Monday so I look forward to trying it out while away from the office.

knelson · #2 06-23-2004, 11:31 AM

Having to support a few companies with Blackberries, I would have to say I would never own one.

bkbroil · #3 06-23-2004, 02:13 PM

From everything that I've heard, they say that "once you get a Blackberry, you become addicted to it." It sounds like the owners of them are very happy. Are you saying you would never purchase one because you are hearing about all the problems that people are having?
If so, what type of problems are happening most frequently?