Blackberry - How does it work

[louy]

I am thinking of getting a blackberry. But they are expensive and I am already tired down into a contract.

I think I may get one from back home.

My question is do I need to sign up for a specific Blackberry Plan from the service provider (Singtel, M1 Starhub etc) or will a unlimited data plan also provide the same level of service (Push emails and surfing etc).

I already have unlimited data on my mobile plan, so If I just switched the handset to Blackberry would it work or do I need to subscribe to something else/extra ?

I believe back home I can just use a data plan.

I have been to ask in stores, but I have been unable to get any sense out of them so far.

[littlegreenman]

Hi Louy,

unfortunately an unlimited data plan is not enough for a blackberry to work. Also please note that there is no way of accessing a POP server directly from a blackberry (maybe with third party apps but that wouldn't make sense, then you don't need a BB in the first place).

So to make a long story short, you need a blackberry service through your service provider. Otherwise it won't work.

[taxico]

My question is do I need to sign up for a specific Blackberry Plan from the service provider (Singtel, M1 Starhub etc) or will a unlimited data plan also provide the same level of service (Push emails and surfing etc).

I already have unlimited data on my mobile plan, so If I just switched the handset to Blackberry would it work or do I need to subscribe to something else/extra ?

I believe back home I can just use a data plan.

I have been to ask in stores, but I have been unable to get any sense out of them so far.

blackberry handsets have specific ID numbers, and email gets set up and handled by blackberry servers - when an email arrives, the servers push it out to the handset.

without the subscription, your handset is not registered with that server. also, as the handset is not regularly "polling" for email, battery life usually is excellent.

the server also delivers the emails compressed, so data use is really quite minimal if you don't have attachments.

you can use your current unlimited plan to "fetch" emails from your account (IMAP's slightly better than POP), but it's unlikely your cell phone would last through 24 hours without a recharge due to the network activity.

you can try SnapperMail on palm treos, or the very good gmail application for other phones. there're also 3rd party providers of "pushmail" services that you can look into...

if you don't use email extensively, you probably don't need blackberry.

if you do use email extensively, blackberry subscriptions are a small price to pay for clearing everything up when you're on-the-go.

despite what many people think, you can setup a blackberry in such a way that you can use the web browser to check emails without a blackberry subscription, but that's just weird.