Blackberry Curve

Blackberry curves it to them

# Blackberry Curve
SingTel: $798 (w/o contract)
# StarHub: $968 (w/o contract)
# Get it at StarHub and SingTel mobile phone retailers

Blackberry made a name for itself as the quintessential communications tool for businessmen. But its new offering, the Blackberry Curve, marks its ambition to conquer the consumer market as well.

The usual enterprise applications are still there - like the powerful e-mail functions with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise to push out corporate e-mail in real-time.

But the big difference this time is that the applications are housed in a sleek and elegant chassis (left) that won't look out of place outside the meeting room. Yes, the Curve does indeed have some sexy curves.

Despite its petite size and lightness, the quad-band smartphone manages to house a full Qwerty keyboard for easy and quick typing. The buttons are easy to use and provide good tactile feedback when pressed, and there are several in-built shortcuts to further simplify usage.

The Curve also comes with an array of media capabilities and consumer applications so consumers don't feel out of place using the phone. There is a 2.0-megapixel camera with flash, a music and video player, and you can download games off the web as well. It also uses a 3.5mm earphone jack so you can plug in your own set of earphones instead of those provided, which are not half bad either.

But one thing that greatly cripples the phone's usefulness is its limited connectivity. There is neither 3G nor Wi-Fi support, so you have to depend solely on the somewhat slower GPRS connectivity to go online.

Another gripe: The menu interface was an eyesore, with row upon row of icons cluttering the screen. But strangely, it was still easy to navigate.

Overall, the phone performed admirably, with almost no delay when opening and running applications, something which the Windows Mobile and Symbian interface used in other smartphones suffer from. And I had several applications running in the background on the Curve to boot.

Battery life was also decent: The phone lasted five days with moderate usage, including taking calls and web surfing.

FINAL SAY
The Blackberry Curve is a great phone for people who demand both form and function of a gadget. However, the price is steep for a 2.5G version. Then again, look at the iPhone.

- By Lim Yee Hung, a freelance writer

Get on the push-mail bandwagon

Push-mail,push mail,e mail push,mail push yahoo,mail push service,configuring mail push qtek9100 and direct mail push service....after all, we are talking about the same term call Push Mail.

It's not just SMS messages you can get on your phone; you can get electronic mail from your e-mail accounts - and easily too. MK WONG shows the way forward

With the Internet, the popularity of e-mail messages grew in leaps and bounds. Research house IDC reported that in 2003, 31 billion e-mail messages were sent and it had expected this number to double in three years' time.

No figures are available today on how big this number has ballooned to.

Even in the early days of the Internet some 12 years ago, everybody who was anybody had an e-mail account and users configured their personal computer to dial up and check their in-boxes regularly.

They had to take care to disconnect after use as the rates were then charged either by the amount time online or by the number of megabytes transmitted or received.

Then, almost overnight, the connected world moved from slow, flaky dial-ups to the 'always connected' and unlimited access of low-cost broadband service. Users found that they no longer had to click on the Send/Receive button every time they wanted to check for any new messages in their e-mail server.

By simply setting the mail reader software (like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird) to automatically check and 'pull in' new mail every so often, they were always assured of getting the latest e-mail messages.

In fact, if the time interval was set to send and receive e-mail every one minute or less, they were able to receive their messages almost instantly.

Then, everything took a wickedly clever twist.

Somebody came up with a novel way of sending down the e-mail messages right into the cellphone without incurring too much traffic - and cost. Business executives embraced the BlackBerry solution like wildfire and soon, even the quiet romantic candlelight dinner could be disrupted by the boss demanding an immediate amendment to some sales plan or other.

As of June this year, Research In Motion (Rim), the company behind the BlackBerry, reported that there are more than nine million subscriber accounts worldwide.

In an almost identical replay of the situation with the personal computer, this time with 3G and 3.5G - also known as HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access), at very affordable prices - users are now looking seriously into implementing push-mail services on the cellphone.

Mobile phone manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson and Nokia have been quick to embrace this technology by providing BlackBerry-compatible solutions on their mobile phones. Microsoft finally perfected its own implementation of the Push-Mail technology in its latest version of Windows Mobile 6 operating system.

Ready? Just follow these steps

Here's how to get on the push-mail system:

# Get the right equipment.

The easiest way is to get hold of a BlackBerry phone. Models include the BlackBerry 7130G, 8700 and 8100.

With the installation of an additional piece of software called BlackBerry Connect, selected smartphones can be used as well.

These include the Dopod C730/C720W/ 838Pro, Sony Ericsson M600i/P910i/P990i, Palm Treo 650 and Nokia E61/E65/9300/9500.

Other compatible devices include PDA phones with the Windows Mobile operating system. Check with the respective vendors for the latest models.

# Next, subscribe to the BlackBerry plan with your service provider.

For SingTel and StarHub users, there is a $10.70 one-time registration charge and a monthly charge of $63.13 for unlimited data usage. (See next page for a rough guide on GPRS charges.)

Just to be clear about the data access charges, with the plan, users of BlackBerry phones need not pay any additional charges when surfing the web on their devices.

BlackBerry Connect users, on the other hand, are not that fortunate. The plan covers only e-mail traffic and users incur additional data charges when browsing the web using the normal GPRS service via 3G or 3.5G.

# Finally, set up the BlackBerry account via the Internet.

Have your BlackBerry unit ready as you have to key in the personal identification number (Pin) and the ESN/Imei (Electronic Serial Number/International Mobile Equipment Identification) number.

Choose a unique login ID for the broadband Internet service, a friendly name (one that will appear in the From field of your e-mail messages, your password and a secret question and answer in case you forget the password and need to reset it.

You are able to set up to 10 different e-mail accounts for the broadband service to monitor and push messages down to you the minute they are received.