Blackberry - Voice Service?
I bought a Blackberry not long ago from Verizon in order to connect my laptop to the Internet with high-speed access. I told the sales rep that I was replacing a Cingular (now ATT) PC Card, and the sales rep persuaded me that the Blackberry was no more expense every month and so I should get it.
A couple of notes about the purchase -
1. I learned that the charger for the Blackberry connects to the same port as the computer tether for the Blackberry. This means that you CAN'T run the Blackberry off the A/C while it is connected to the laptop. This means that if you run out of battery power on the Blackberry, then your PC is off-line until the Blackberry is charged up. They didn't tell me about that!
2. The Verizon Blackberry was SIGNIFICANTLY faster than the Cingular PC card. Different technology - 3/4 times as fast. Much better. I'm sure the PC Card running the same connection technology is equally fast.
3. They CAN'T turn off the voice access on the device. I learned this because the Blackberry was stolen, and I thought I had unlimited data access only to find out when the bill came out that there were voice-related charges. Verizon was very good about undoing the charges because they saw I had signed up for a data-only plan and that I had other voice plans. IMPORTANT - Don't assume that the voice is turned off, because it isn't. This could be an asset if your phone died and you wanted to use the Blackberry as an emergency phone, but it costs 25 cents/minute.
4. The web browser did a commendable job on pages that were designed for a small screen. I created a custom and password-protected webpage so that I could pull showing instructions from my Blackberry, and it was quite speedy and pretty easy to use. This opens all kinds of possibilities.
5. I thought about having voice service when I bought it, but decided that I wanted to be able to talk on my phone while I was using the Blackberry in my hands. I didn't want the confusion of trying to do both things on one device at the same time. That said, I thought their browser function was really cool because it highlighted phone numbers on web pages and allowed one to click on the phone number to dial it.
All in all, it was a good purchase. HOWEVER, since the device was stolen, I need to buy another device to hook up my pc for open houses, and I think I am going to go with a PC card instead. Mainly, it solves the power issue identifed in paragaph one above. Call if you have questions.
Margaret 760-942-4242
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