HOW AND WHEN?
Like I said before, I use this Blackberry for mostly for work so I can always access my emails, calendar items and contact. I have also setup the BIS (Blackberry Internet Service) feature so I can have my personal emails (such as Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc) delivered to the device also. And it works like a charm. Once you have BIS configured with all your email accounts (10 max I think), you will not have to configure it ever again. If you ever switch your device, all you have to do is login to your BIS account and change the device Pin and all your emails will start coming in.

I also travel a lot (for work and pleasure), so I often need to have Internet access to stay up-to-date. So what I usually do at airports or hotel rooms that do not provide free Internet access is to connect my 8830 to my laptop with a USB cable and use the VZ Access Manager software to connect to the Internet. Now this feature will only work if you have Tethering enabled on your account and the fact that you have good signal on the device. But I have not had much trouble with it.

There are a few things on this device that I wish worked or worked better. The GPS function that Version crippled to the bone is useless on this device. You cannot use the Maps software to navigate unless you pay Verizon to use their software – which in my opinion is a rip-off. Other providers have this feature enabled on their similar devices. There is also a little bug in Verison's version of the operating system of this device. The ringer volume is always set to medium. Even if you turn it all the way up, it will always ring at medium. You can play your ringtones at high when you listen to them, but when you set them as ringtone for the phone it will always ring at medium loudness. But you tend to get used to it – and if you don't then you learn to cope with it by downloading louder tones. The customizable button on the left of this device is poorly positioned. I always tend to get that pressed by mistake when ever I remove it from my pocket or pretty much do anything. I have set it up so that the Profile setting comes up when I press that. I think it would make sense to have that button be flat instead of sticking out.

The trackball takes sometime to get used to, but once you do you wouldn't want to go back. My thumb used to hurt once in a while when I used to over-work the 8703e, but I have no such issue with this new trackball design. I give two thumbs up to the engineers at Blackberry.

Speaker phone is loud and clear, but I hardly ever use it because I always use my Plantronics Discovery 665 Bluetooth headset with it. And now that it’s the law, I am always on it.


BATTERY LIFE :
This Blackberry 8830 has a 5 hour battery life. It is obviously better than that of the 8703e's. I usually have my Blackberry plugged in when I am at work, but I really get to see how the battery performs during long weekends because I hardly ever charge it then (since I like to carry it with me all the time). With normal use this device lasts me three days without charging (four if I don't play any games). By the end of a three day weekend I will usually have 1 bar in the battery icon left.

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