Blackberry Connect on the Nokia 9300
by Volker Weber
Installation was a breeze. It ties directly into the Messages application as another plugin. Without having used it for more than a few minutes, I can already spot one advantage: "Allow Service While Roaming". This probably means you can switch your BB service off when abroad, saving you GPRS roaming charges.
After having used the Blackberry service on the 9300 now for one day, I have a few things to say. The software blends right into the Symbian interface. Everything works exactly as expected. In folder view, you only get to see three messages, but when you open the folder you get six, as on a Blackberry 7290. YMMV depending on font size which can be changed on both devices. The Nokia device is much slower when opening messages, and you need to operate it with two hands. On the Blackberry device there is a better integration. The Nokia for instance lacks the ability to initiate a phone call to the sender when reading a mail message. This seems to be a rather big oversight, since you may often want to call back somebody. There is also no means to mark messages as read/opened other than through actually opening them one by one. On the 7290 you select a number of messages and then pick "Mark opened" from the scroll wheel menu.
Even with these shortcomings, I do like the Blackberry service on the 9300. On the outer display you get two additional indicators: B and @. B means you are connected to the data center and @ means you have unread mail waiting. When you receive new mail the software will beep and you can select the sound and volume for each profile, all from a single screen. On the internal screen you get the same indicators. See the @ in the screenshot above.
As stated before, the 9300 has no vibrate, so you won't catch every incoming email while you have put away the phone on your belt. This might actually make it less addictive than the standard Crackberry. Which is a good thing. ;-)
One important consideration for selecting a Blackberry provider in Germany: I have been told that O2 Germany does not have GPRS roaming with T-Mobile Germany. This is b/s. I had not been told that GPRS does not work. I had been told Blackberry would not work when roaming in the T-Mobile-D network. Which is also wrong. Blackberry works just fine, no matter in which network you are. I think I have some important feedback for my vendor. ;-)
Comments
There is definitely GPRS roaming between O2 and T-Mobile (even UMTS roaming). I.e. Blackberry works quite well with O2 contract in both networks on GPRS - actually no limitation on Blackberyy providers.
Just curious where this rumour comes from.
Thanks, Thomas. I have tested with manually forcing the T-Mobile network. Both GPRS and Blackberry work just fine. The "rumour" came from my O2 contact.
