Just Bought A Crackberry... (UPDATE)
Monday, May 26th, 2008 - 12:28pm
Well, after hemming and hawing over buying a new phone for the last half a year, I finally went through Wal-Mart's website and got a Blackberry Curve through T-Mobile (600 anytime minutes, unlimited nights/weekends, unlimited Blackberry web/email data for $59.99 a month).
It's being shipped to me now, and I have to say that I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing... nothing in particular, mind you... I'm just someone who seems to worry and regret the decisions I make.
So I guess this is a way of asking if anyone has one of these things and can reassure me as to how "great" they are 
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I've used a BlackBerry for years and have a 8701e for my new business. They rock and are very reliable devices. I wish we had some of the rate plans US customers get here. I pay the same amount as you do but with my provider (Telus Mobility), I get only 350 anytime minutes and 4MB of data a day.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
I was debating between a blackberry and a windows mobile phone because of the available software... I have a PPC already, and love the thousands of apps that are available (both freeware and otherwise). I have been looking around online, and it looks like the blackberry is no slouch in this department either, but I'm just really unfamiliar with where to find stuff, if there are GOOD equivalents to what I'm used to (ebook readers, in particular), etc.
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That seems odd. I pay about the same and get 1000 minutes day, evening/weekends free, unlimited data and call display, voicemail, etc. for like, $79 or something. That's with Telus too. It was actually more money for less minutes until I called them and asked about current plan options. You can change three times a year or something, so I'd give them a buzz.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
I love mine, I have my e-mail set up and it, I get called crackberry at work because of it but seeing as how we are cell phone geeks here most of the time.
I also still need to have mine set up as a modem for it for my mac, it has a great battery life and is durable-both me and my coworker have thrown ours, droped it and his puppy even bit the phone and they both still work, syncing with a mac doesnt really work but if you just use a windows machine then you should be fine
as far as pricing goes, I am on tmo with a family plan and just did the unlimited data feature for $20 a month
I support the second amendment
Anyone have any good sites for software downloads? Or recommendations for "must have" apps?
I figure I can't complain too much since I got the curve for -$50
I also saw that the new 4.5 firmware is supposedly due sometime soon which gives the phone several extra features.
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Jebus. And that's with a BlackBerry or just with a phone?
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
I've got a curve for work, and it's great. There's a cool Google package for the curve that gives you Google maps and Gmail (among other things) The Google maps use the cell towers to give a rough triangulation of your position (I've seen anything from 700-3000 meters). It's great for road trips or business. It's not a GPS, but it's also not another piece of equipment to carry either.
http://mobile.google.com on your BB browser.
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Palm Treo 755p. It's a Super Talk plan ($40) along with one of the bundles.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
One of us ... one of us ...
Email is the killer app on a BB. My wife is constantly looking over at me and saying derisively, "working again..."
Maps works well. Twitterberry works okay if you're into that.
Crackberry.com is quite popular, especially the forums. I've also found some things through bbgeeks.com.
Enjoy your new toy, er, phone.
*Legion* recognizing greatness wrote:
I'm trying to google this stuff, but I'm having pretty poor results.
anyone have any links to freeware, or themes? Stuff they've personally used before?
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damn double posts.
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The Blackberry Curve is not unlike the WM-powered Samsung BlackJack 2 that I own. What I've read suggests that the Curve is the better dedicated email device, and the BlackJack is the better phone/media device. That pretty much mirrors my experience with the BJ2 - great phone, 3G data support is a big feather in the cap that the Blackberry lacks - but Outlook Express is decent, not great (no IMAP IDLE "push" support
).
The newer Curves (8310) have GPS built in. If it's anything like the Windows Mobile version, Google Maps can use built-in GPS as well as cell tower triangulation, which is handy.
Even better than Google Maps, however, is Microsoft's Live Search. With the GPS enabled, it behaves more like an in-car navigation system than Google Maps does.
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Xbox Live: Legion SB / PSN: Legion_SB / Steam: legion028 / Twitter: legion
If I'm going to be an ass, I might as well be a hot female sportscaster's ass.
It is not especially easy to google the free software. I think there's just not as much of it out there as you might be used to for a PC. The Google app pack pretty much has everything you might want other than games.
You might want to get an additional memory card to store media on. I got a 4gb card for $30 or something. Just make sure it's compatible with your model Blackberry.
Be very careful trying to drive and use the GPS at the same time.
"All that time you waste dating and having sex could be better spent scouring the web for new game developer press releases." - Quintin_Stone
Ah well... I'll see what I can find... hopefully I won't regret my purchase.
As for the warning, the 8320 model Curve doesn't have GPS, so I should be OK
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Just realize that after a few weeks with it, without you will feel naked and scared.
FedEx dropped it off! Woo Hoo!
Currently charging. The screen looks fantastic, but I have to admit that I feel somewhat scared of this new-fangled thing.
So, what should I get first?
-The google package
-Opera Mini browser
What else?
Also, does anyone know if the AOL/IM/Etc. programs use DATA, or are they considered SMS messages? I have unlimited data, and opted NOT to get the "messaging" package, so I'm hoping it's data...
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Data, not SMS.
no particular interest, no particular talent
I'd suggest the Google package first personally.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
f*ck.
I've been messing around with this thing for a while now, but for some reason it refuses to connect to my wifi network. It sees my network, so the antenna is working, but it just sits there gives me a "fail to connect" error every time I try. Not sure what to do. Could it be my router? Seems odd, since everything else I have works (PSP, DS, laptop, etc) with it. I can try assigning it with a static IP address, I guess, and see if that works.
Otherwise, I'm not sure what to do... whether this unit is defective or what.
Arg.
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where can i find the primary/secondary DNS server information? and the DNS suffix?
I got the subnet mask, default gateway and IP address by using IPconfig in the command prompt. I'm really kind of an idiot with this stuff, though.
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You're not using MAC filtering, are you?
Gaming / PC Tech Blog: www.blastprocessing.net
Xbox Live: Legion SB / PSN: Legion_SB / Steam: legion028 / Twitter: legion
If I'm going to be an ass, I might as well be a hot female sportscaster's ass.
No.
If I choose "assign an IP address automatically," the thing just sits there and doesn't connect. If I assign the blackberry a static IP address, it DOES connect to my router, but it sits in "yellow circle with white line through it" status (i.e. won't actually access any data".
I don't know what to put for the DNS server addresses... i put the "wi.rr.com" for the "connection specific DNS suffix" I found using IPCONFIG. No idea what I'm doing, really.
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If you're sure you're connected to the router, try the router's IP as your default DNS server.
If that doesn't work, try looking in your router settings, or surfing the net, for your ISP's DNS server.
If that doesn't work, try something like OpenDNS at 208.67.222.222.
If that doesn't work, DNS likely isn't your issue.
*Legion* recognizing greatness wrote:
thanks to some magic googling, I figured out a solution... I had to go into the router settings and make the router assign a specific DHCP address to the blackberry's MAC address.
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Well that sounds ... dumb. A reserved IP shouldn't be any different than any other address from the pool.
Glad it works now.
*Legion* recognizing greatness wrote:
yeah, I agree. I must have spent 2 hours last night trying to figure that crap out. I guess maybe I could blame my router (it's pretty old... like 4-5 years), although it's worked with everything else I've ever used (including LIVE).
So far, I'm not seeing a huge difference in speed between using wifi or using the edge network.
So far, I must say, it's pretty cool to be logged into yahoo!, AOL, GoogleTalk, etc., and get my messages and mail instantly. I am still kind of wishing I'd have gotten a WinMo6 phone though... there is SO much freeware out there... and the blackberry apps aren't wowing me. I tried to download a "push weather" app from the official BBHelp site, but it kept telling me I had to "download it from the official blackberry internet service," whatever the hell that meant. I was using the BB browser and using the edge network... and it still denied me.
The sample video on the media player looked pretty sharp, so once my 4gb microsdhc gets here, I might try that out... only problem is that I already have an iPod video, a psp, and a PPC... maybe I should have just gone with a basic phone afterall.
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That is what BlackBerries do, first and foremost. Everything else is ancillary.
My guess is that the app market (both paid and free) will grow as RIM shifts from purely corporate email devices (see the last few years) to more trendy consumer devices (e.g. the Curve and Pearl). They're still in the early stages of that transition.
I haven't setup one for direct TCP/IP yet, so take this with a pound of salt. My understanding of BB internet service was that it was all proxied off servers at RIM, much like messaging. When our corporate BBES went down this week, it pretty much bricked my BB. My guess is that the TCP/IP setup bypasses those, and the push services are still integrated with RIM Central.
*Legion* recognizing greatness wrote:
Trust me, you don't want Windows Mobile. There is a library for it yes but it's UI is god awful and a lot of the software for it has stability issues. Even guys like Paul Thurrott who will defend everything Microsoft does has said that Windows Mobile is a joke and should have been canned a long time ago. There is a lot of good stuff for the BlackBerry if you look on a lot of the forums out there. A lot of it doesn't run that well on my 8703e because it's got less horsepower but the Curve is a pretty fast device and can do a lot of neat stuff.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
I've never used a WinMo phone, but I have owned a Dell Axim and an HP iPaq rx3715 and think they're awesome. I can find a free app... a GOOD free app... for just about anything I ever need. I can also find hundreds upon hundreds of quality games and other apps to buy.
I am really just baffled by the lack of blackberry freeware... even THEMES! I'm looking at "crackberry.com" and browsing themes, and see they're trying to charge $7 for a fricking THEME? Are you kidding me?
Sigh.
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
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There are more free themes out there. Truth be told, I've had the same theme since I bought mine so I haven't looked that much but there are quite a few places you can get one. I believe crackberry.com also has their own store so that might not be the best resource for that. www.blackberryforums.com might be a better option.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca