MiXBSD's Blog

I recently acquired a second-hand BlackBerry 7290, which was fortunate timing as my Sony-Ericsson T226 was constantly complaining that the SIM card was dislodged, requiring a power-cycle.

The good news is that I didn't pay anything for the BB. Which is just as well, as it has less mobile data functionality than both the T226 (~3 years old, formerly on a Rogers contract) and my old T68i (that I bought in ~2002 and brought with me to Canada).

See, whilst the BB has a bigger screen for websurfing and appears to have GPRS, it won't let me connect to any websites. Why is it I can download pictures and midi files (T226 can use them as ringtones) on Rogers PAYG via WAP on both the T226 and T68i, but can't get jack all on the BlackBerry's GPRS? The BB is locked on the Rogers network, so there's absolutely no reason why GPRS on a BB should be any different to GPRS on a Sony-Ericsson. MidpSSH doesn't work either. Also, on the old Rogers firmware and the new version I installed, both did not have a browser icon, so I had to install OperaMini via desktop manager and USB.

One thing I did notice is that the config on the Sony-Ericssons asks for an APN, APN userid and password, plus an IP address. There's no IP address field on the BB.

My guess is that the BB can't WAP surf and instead relies entirely on BES or BIS for its MDS. Since BES/BIS costs more and is only available on contract, it seems that the BlackBerry is over-rated, at least for non-business use. In fact, that begs the next question: why does my BB show "GSM", then "GPRS" with the signal strength, if it can't do anything on GPRS?

Okay, I can't download pictures via WAP, so I try using the desktop manager. Nope, that doesn't work either, as it doesn't allow me to specify pictures to upload - all I can do is backup the entire device to one big file.

Hmmmm, what about infra-red? No... unlike my ~6 year-old T68i, the BB has no IR connectivity that will enable my laptop to send files to it.

Alright, it has BlueTooth. So I manage to pair the T68i and BB up, but can't do anything once the two are talking to each other. Can't even sync-up address books.

A-ha, what if I send the pics over MMS? No... the BB doesn't even recognise MMS messages and totally ignores them. As a point of comparison, I can MMS in both directions between both Ericssons and the wife's Motorola V220.

The only success I had was to use the directions given in this forum. It does work but it's a heck of a lot of effort.

My advice to anyone considering buying a BlackBerry for personal use: DON'T. I'm sure that with corporate BES or BIS, it's a productivity tool, but as a "standalone" phone/PDA it's useless without a[n over-priced] data plan.