[jnocerin]

Hi All,
I just got approval from my office to get a blackberry, and hooking into their BB servers internally. Now I figure since its a decent cost outlay, I figured I would get the newest Blackberry, i.e. 8700 series. My choices where I am are Cingular, and T-Mobile. I don't really have any experience with either company, but am leaning toward T-Mobile because they offer an equipment protection plan. Any thoughts on carriers would be great.

On the other side of things, although I have been working in computers for years and been a cell phone user since the old bag phone, I have never owned a BB. (Used to a have a Palm VII, and M70 with network access) and was wondering what kind of fun (non work) accessories, and tools and accessories are available? (cameras, etc). Also is their a good site to get apps from? And lastly I know I can link up to my Bluetooth headset, but can I bluetooth link to my laptop as well.

OK, I think I have typed enough for now. I am going to keep reading everyone else's posts to get more info , but would appreciate any insight you can give to this BB newb.

Thanks
Jessica

[NJBlackBerry]

Welcome to BB Forums!

I'll take a shot at these questions, in no particular order:

1) Fun; very little. The BB is a business class device. No camera, no MP3 player, no expandable memory. The hobbyists miss it, but most business people don't.

2) Carrier - the big question. Which carriers work in the people's homes, on their commute and where they work. It is NOT an easy question. You can mix and match carriers. BES is carrier agnostic and doesn't care. We have BBs from every carrier on on BES.

3) Apps; check out the General BlackBerry Forum sticky threads FAQs. There are several "Killer application" threads out there. The amount of free software pales by comparison to the Palms, but somehow we deal with it

4) Bluetooth is extremely limited on a BlackBerry. You can do headsets, as you mentioned, and you can use the BT to sync PIM data in certain circumstances. You can NOT use the BT to act as a modem link, or to beam files around. It is very limited.

Hope that helps!

[ebgreen]

Good advice. I have a hard time blieving that this is accurate:

We have BBs from every carrier on on BES.

There are 84 carriers defined in the vendor.xml file. If you really had all those in your company I would be very impressed.

[NJBlackBerry]

You are correct. We do not have every carrier. Only around 20 worldwide. Domestically we have BBs from every MAJOR carrier on one BES.

[ebgreen]

I'm just in anal retentive mode today for some reason.

[NJBlackBerry]

I'd have to agree with you

[jnocerin]

Thanks for the quick follow-up , I think I'll open a thread to see what folks in CT find to be the stronger of the 2 carriers (T-Mobile or Cingular) in CT (small state). I only wish the Nextel/Sprint 87xx was coming out soomer, as Nextel is what I have for my cel phone and have great service everywhere. (Shocking isn't it).

Jess