Who has a Blackberry?

[WilfSell]

And are they worth the money? What can I do with it? Will it enrich my life and make it easier?

Thanks.

[DirtySexyMummy]

It depends.

What do you think you might need it for? Handy if you need access to email 24/7.

[Carmenere]

I have one, it is V expensive but I love it. I have found that anyone who works for themselves loves them and anyone who has one provided by work hates them. Partners generally hate them.

[ingles2]

I've got one,...good for me because I'm on location at lot and away from the computer. Imagine it would be a nightmare to have one provided by work. You are never ever unavailable if you are like me and can't resist the little new email beep!

[EachPeachPearMum]

I have one for work, but I keep it on silent ALL the time I am not in the office. I check it when I want to. It is very useful for accessing email when out and about all the time.
I have never mned on my though [proud hard worker emoticon]

[WilfSell]

Thanks. (LL - have now seen the other thread and replied )

See I don't really need to be contactable all the time but I'm trying to find a birthday gadget for DH to buy me that will help my life. And I currently carry in my bag, a mobile, a Palm Tungsten organiser, a camera and a laptop - well, not the latter since the baby knocked his my beer on it . Said laptop is about to be picked up any minute to be inspected for repair or replacement via the insurance company. I told them I really don't mind if they can fix it; but if I'm honest a small part of me is hoping they can't - oh god, smite me down, insurance saints. You know when they do the 'fraud test' on the phone getting you to tell your story twice in great detail? And I did that blushing even though I haven't done anything wrong thing that I always do in front of policemen, A&E staff when a child has bumped his head and library clerks.

Anyhow, back to the point: I was wondering whether it would be possible to rationalise some of this technology somewhat. When out and about I use the laptop and phone most but mostly for writing, data analysis and internet research, not emailing or MNing though obv I check it.

So I've been thinking about either a smartphone/organiser or a good camera phone, but I don't really know what will work best for me... Any ideas?

[GeekBoy]

wait a month and get one of the new iPhoneV2s.. ..calendar,contacts,email,web,GPS,music,video,photos.. ...lust-worthy indeed!

[MrsSprat]

I have a work blackberry (a Pearl), but crappy reception at home so rarely bothered by out of hours emails. Brilliant for scanning emails on train into/home from work, which will truly come into its own if I go part time. The mobile phone bit is very poor and eats battery power.

[cmotdibbler]

I have a Blackberry Pearl through work, and I blardy love it. It lets me use all those useless bits of time in taxis/airports/boring presenations/motorway services and keep right on top of my emails.

i don't leap to its every buzz though, and am v disciplined about it (unlike my boss). We have an agreement that if anyone needs you urgently outside your timezone working hours you don't expect them to be looking at emails, but if you ring them and their phone is on they are fair game.

I love that its synchronised with my Outlook and beeps at me to remind me about appointments and peoples birthdays.

If you wanted to write a lot on your phone, you'd want a windows OS phone though.

[TigerFeet]

I am a BlackBerry widow

[EyeballsintheSky]

I had a Nokia E61 with Blackberry which was pretty good. Dumped it with lightening speed when the iPhone came out and haven't looked back. The iPhone is so much easier for accessing email and the Internet.

Just found out I can get a free upgrade to the 3G iPhone so I'm a seriously happy bunny person.

[llareggub]

I have one and also keep mine on silent. I find it very handy as I work part time so can check emails on my days off in case the place falls apart without me. Should the place fall apart on my day off, and I am doing something more interesting, I can claim poor blackberry reception and ignore it.

[Pollyanna]

I am going to ask my work for one when I go back - I am hoping they will let me go in later if I persuade them I will be able to check up on emails while on the train ( I think it will help me too, but it is truly a double edged sword imo).

I am also a crackberry widow - I have to hide dhs at weekends. He even took it up the ski slopes with him.

[cestlavie]

DW hates my blackberry and has regularly threatened its destruction! It is, however, incredibly handy if you need access to e-mail 24/7 and does mean you can leave the office that bit earlier/ not come in at weekends like you might have had to do previously. Beyond e-mail though, I'm not sure how useful it is.

[Bink]

I resisted work's offer of one for ages, till I went to a series of direly boring meetings (the kind where half the attendees endlessly "take it offline" in another room) and everybody else filled in the waiting time catching up on all their other work & I couldn't.

So I have one now, & I love it & it is nothing but helpful. No disadvantages at all.

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

I have one for work and it has made it possible for me to work term-time only - ie I only have work meetings in the term time, but can keep up with other stuff on the blackberry while being at home with the boys, or going places with them, which I could never have done otherwise, and so has immeasurably enhanced all of quality of life for all of us. Also, love the built in GPS on backberry maps - great fun & very useful!

[Earlybird]

So, which is better for ease of use:

Blackberry
I-phone
Treo (Trio?)
Something else

Or is it a matter of personal taste/your needs?

Is there a marked difference in expense to purchase and expense to run?

Which would you have if you worked for yourself (and therefore could choose, rather than it being provided by the office)?

[lunavix]

I have a blackberry cos it was cheap

o2 offered me a good contract and it was a choice of naff phones or that one!

Loving it, own my own business but haven't needed it for work yet. Friend threw a strop and got one too and has sent it back cos she couldn't get on with it.

[alibubbles]

I love mine, I can read all my emails whilst I am sitting outside school waiting for my mindies to come out.

Mine was free on an upgrade with vodafone, it costs £25 a month including the blackberry service, plus 800 free anytime minutes. I reckon that is good value!

It was fab in China, Saudi Arabia and the Maldives ( ok showing off now) but I didn't need to take my laptop!

[bundle]

hello blackberry people

dh has one but is even less tech savvy than me

when he takes photos they're just saved to the blackberry

when i took out the memory card to upload some it said it was empty - no music, photos etc. is there a place in the blackberry that's like the control panel on a pc where i can tell it to automatically save photos etc to the memory card? or at least give me an option...

it seems to me like the least intuitive piece of kit I've ever come across, this blackberry thing [wash my mouth out emoticon]

[PigeonPie]

Go for the iPhone. DH has helped with IT stuff for blackberries but definitely prefers his new iPhone. It really is fab and I think a lot cheaper to run than a blackberry; ie, £99 for the iPhone plus £35 per month which is for something like 600 mins of air time, 500 texts and free data (ie all emailing and websurfing).

[bundle]

anyone????

[GooseyLoosey]

I have one. I LOVE it, I really do. Its the best gadget I have ever had and unlike all of the others, it has alwaysw worked and done exactly what I want it to. It can be a bit slow at rendering web pages, but then as far as I can see, I phones are much slower. It is brilliant for e-mail and I can ever read word files attached to them (clearly not really long ones).

However, I have to say, I love mine so much and spend so much time reading it, that in an effort to stop me, my children glued it to something.

[Quattrocento]

I have one.

Tbh I have mixed feelings about it.

It is marvellous and useful and I use it every day.

The downside is when you curl up in bed next to your DH and you think "Time to ......

... just check what emails have come in from the US before going to sleep."