[luis aka lv]

well i am new to the Blackberry world! i am currently a nextel subscriber and i own an i850 but i am looking to get a BB. so i am here to ask for some advice and guidance. i know a couple people who have BB's and i hear good things about it. so what BB should i get? and why? also i was told that i could take my SIM card out of my current nextel phone and put in a BB and it will work...is there any truth to this? all your comments would be greatly appreciated, THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

[careyana]

Welcome!

Blackberrys can be GREAT tools and are very easy to grow attached to as most "crackberry" addicts can tell you.

If you intend to use the phone portion a great deal I would suggest the 7100 or the 8700 for ease of use. If you intend to use email more frequently, almost any model would work equally well. If you're interested in the newest and greatest gadgets, I would definitely suggest the 8700!

[dc/dc]

It is true that you can move your SIM to a BlackBerry and it will work. You should bear in mind, however, that Sprint will automatically add the special BlackBerry data plan to your bill.

[nb_mitch]

In most cases yes, but a BB doesn't really use a SIM like a phone, it only carries the phone number. The address book on a BB is synced to your mail program (generally Outlook). My 8700 does have an option to copy the phone numbers from a SIM to the address book, but it is read only, you can't write to a SIM. In my experience, I found it easier to enter all my addresses, emails, phone numbers in Outlook and then Sync that to my BB rather than copy the SIM.

ps, I would recommend the 8700 if you like a full keyboard, the 7100 is probably more phone like, but uses suretype, which some like and some don't.

[luis aka lv]

how will sprint/nextel know that i changed over from a regular two way to a blackberry?

[dc/dc]

Quite easily. Your device's IMEI is reported to the network, and the network knows that that IMEI belongs to a BlackBerry.

[paradisephoto]

And yet, I was able to switch a sim from a 530i to a blackberry for months without Nextel knowing it. No monthly charge for data I wasn't using.

[ollywompus]

Also keep in mind, since no one has bothered to mention it, that you can only switch your Nextel Sim into a Nextel BB (i.e. the 7520 or the 7100i)... you switch your sim into a GSM BB and it's not going to work for you, plain and simple.

-olly

[Dubdub]

But switching the sim card will only work when going from one Sprint/Nextel device to another. You can't take the sim card from Sprint/Nextel and put it in a Cingular or T-Mobile 8700. Won't work.

[luis aka lv]

thanks for the advice. i think i will get a nextel BB 7510 or 7520. are those any good?

[philton]

They are both nice devices, but I personally have the 7100i. I chose it because it has more of a phone feel to it as opposed to a PDA feel. Just my .02.

[luis aka lv]

true ...is it hard to use the 7510/7520 as a phone?

[dc/dc]

I've never thought so... I've owned 4 QWERTY BB's, and 1 7100 series, and have never had any issues with the QWERTY ones like the 7520.

[luis aka lv]

dont mean to sound dumb but whats a QWERTY?

[Naked Wife]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry7250/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

QWERTY is the first six letters in a keyboard. I believe he is refering to the full keyboard BB as opposed to the Sure Type keyboard which is also QWERTY but with two letters per key (7100 series)

[luis aka lv]

ohh ok...i dont like that!! i would rather have the full keyboard