[Andylaker23]

Firstly, I apologise if these are really stupid questions... but I'm completely new to all things blackberry... so I didn't know where to start.

I recently purchased a Blackberry Pearl 8100 from eBay, cheapish price, I only purchased it because my two closest friends both have blackberry's (obviously the more flashy ones), so I just wanted a way to stay in contact with them easily.

So, I seem to be having issues.

Firstly the thing that's bothering me the most, when I set my email up, it always just stays on 'activating please wait', it just won't activate, says no service connection.
Next, bbm, I wanted to use this feature, firstly people have been adding my pin, but I haven't received anything... would that be because I'm not yet activated? And on various sites it said I should be able to view my profile, ti change my picture, details, status, etc, etc, I press menu yet it gives me none of those options.
And lastly the internet browser is pretty much non-existent, it doesn't load up ANY page, tried the blackberry site, google, twitter, facebook, just says requesting and that's all it ever does.

So, to sum up my confusedness, all I want from this phone is to be able to have good working apps like facebook, I want the BBM to work as it's meant to, and preferably a browser that actually loads something.

So am I missing something? Do I need to buy or download some additional software content to be able to get me started? Because at the moment the phone is no better than one I had 5 years ago, it seems odd. Thanks. I was going to post the exact link of my item bought but I need 10 posts to do that, so apologies.

And sorry again, I'm noob when it comes to this.

[Dubdub]

You must have a BB data plan (a.k.a. bolt on in the UK) for these RIM related services to work. We have several UK members so perhaps they can better explain the bolt-on.

Here are two links from our FAQ - did you see them in your search?

What do I need a Data Plan for? - BlackBerryFAQ

Buying a BlackBerry off eBay - BlackBerryFAQ

[MidnightDraven]

You need a Blackberry bolt-on to a contract plan, OR a Simpicity for Blackberry tariff, OR blackberry web and text PAYG tariff from O2.

Dub, only O2 in the UK call it a bolt-on. T-mobile call it a booster, and the others call it Blackberry email, blackberry email and internet, or Blackberry add-on.