Blackberry True Push Email

With push email you get email delivered immediately on your phone just like an SMS, most phones say that they support push email but its not actually true push email... just like MS Outlook where all that they do is to check your mailbox every x minutes (like 5/10 minutes) so every time it does a simple send & receive.

The Blackberry support true push email using BIS (Blackberry Internet Services) you can setup email accounts (like your Gmail account) and it get pushed to your Blackberry - there is a lot of detail on how this works but I will not explain it here.

As in previous blog entry you can pay R59 per month (30 days) from your Vodacom airtime which give you unlimited internet access on your Blackberry meaning that you don't pay R2 per 1 MB for internet (3G/GPRS/EDGE) - push email, Facebook and browsing is free.

There are limits, you can't for example download huge emails, emails got a limit size as well etc. I suggest you check with your service provider (Vodacom, MTN) onthese limitations.

Also at work my phone is always on silent, the Blackberry got it nice where if there's a email a little red light flickers - very nice visible notification.

My Blackberry Experience

Over last weekend I bought myself the Blackberry Curve 8520 smartphone, I always wanted to have a Blackberry since I heard its very good especially with email taken that I spend a lot of time on emails.

I didn't got the device on a contract but as a prepaid package, so I bought it cash together with a Vodacom prepaid SIM card.

With Vodacom you can signup for the Blackberry Internet Service by using your airtime, R59 for 30 days (subtracted from your airtime) gives you unlimited Internet access e.g. browsing, Facebook, Twitter and push email. Note that Skype (VOIP) or any form of streaming will cost you extra since that isn't part of the unlimited Internet package.

For push email you just register your email addresses on the Vodacom portal and get pure push email (I will blog about push email in the future).

For Facebook a little blue envelope will appear if someone sent you a message etc.

The Blackberry Curve uses GPRS/EDGE and Wifi unfortunately no 3G support but for me that is fine since I'm mostly in a office where there is Wifi and yes I'm one of those that don't use my phone while driving.

For me the most to get used to was the little keyboard, I came from my Samsung Omnia i900 and iPod Touch that got touch screens and all of a sudden need to get used to the little keyboard.

If your a developer, please fill in my poll: Do u want C#/VB.Net for Blackberry?