[mikegold]

I was very excited to try out the Bold, even though I'm pretty happy with my Nokia E71.

Unfortunately, had to return the Bold. My company does not have BB Enterprise Server but runs Exchange 2007.

I thought we'd be able to run BB Professional Express (?) which does not require a separate Server and should be able to run on the existing Mail Server. Unfortunately the requirements for this software would slow down the performance of our mail server too much and we just can't take the chance to install.

Getting my email through IMAP with the BB was not a problem, however it would not allow syncing with calendars and contacts as I get with Activesync on my Nokia. Tried out Astrasync but didn't care for the separate inbox and no html mail.

I have to say I'm also not a fan of the trackball. I much preferred the function of the old wheel on my old 7290, 8700 and 7100 devices. The trackball felt a little cheap and not as solid as the old hardware.

[akosnitzky]

Wirelessly posted (Its All About the U!)

Sorry you had to return it. You would have got used to the trackball anyway

[mikegold]

Originally Posted by akosnitzky

Wirelessly posted (Its All About the U!)

Sorry you had to return it. You would have got used to the trackball anyway

I think you're right, I would have gotten used to it and the screen is outstanding! Unfortunately I wasn't going to get the functionality I needed and that is, of course, no fault of the device but of software.

[david9962000]

I felt the same way coming from a 7230, 7290, 8700 but after a week with my first 8300, i got use to it.

[koleary19067]

As they said, you would have gotten use to the trackball.

[mikegold]

Originally Posted by koleary19067

As they said, you would have gotten use to the trackball.

I agree but, as I said, it was really more of a software/systems issue that made me return it.

[akosnitzky]

Are you sticking with the Nokia?

[mikegold]

Originally Posted by akosnitzky

Are you sticking with the Nokia?

For now I am sticking with the E71. Symbian is a solid o/s and for syncing, it does what I need it to do. I may check out the N97 when it comes out.

Obviously the keyboard on the BB is superior but until I can work out the syncing issues with my company I'll have to stick with Symbian.

[hchavarria]

I had a similar problem and I too had the E71. To me the way the Blackberry Bold displays emails is far superior then the E71 and the keyboard was much better. I too faced the problem of using BIS rather the BES because company does not offer BES but I am able to sync my BB with my desktop outlook using a program called companionlink from companionlink.com. This software syncs my calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes. Although it does not do it over the air to me it was not a big deal to plug in the BB to the desktop occassionally.

[mikegold]

Yeah..I know I could have synced the calendar, contacts, etc. with the desktop but I really need to be able to do it OTA.

I may end up trying it again.

[hchavarria]

There are other solutions too which are OTA such as Astrasync which works well I tried it with the 7-day trial and it worked great, you can even choose not to sync email if you prefer the native BB app. I personally chose companionlink because I didn't need OTA contacts, calendars, and tasks since I mostly use these things on my phone anyway and can always plug-in when needed. Besides with companionlink I dont need additional applications running on my BB and rather use that space for something else. This solution is about $50 a year.

If looking for a free OTA solution you might want to try funambol (my.funambol.com) which works pretty well at syncing contacts and calendars. THis solution does however requre you install a add-in to outlook on your desktop to manage the sync. Out of the many things I think the lack of native sync support between exchange and BB without BES is what I miss the most from my HTC Touch Pro (AT&T Fuze) / Nokia / iPhone 3G. Still not sure I would go back to them though (at least not for now since I am always changing)

[seoulfalcon]

You can also try using software from thinkpost.net. I use that to sync my calendar and my contacts. It works great. You can do a search in the forum for thinkpost, and that should help answer your questions.