Locating frequent contacts

[netspirit]

I have a new Blackberry. I am a little frustrated when trying to locate a phone # quickly. After syncing with my Outlook, I have 260 contacts in my address book (as opposed to 30 phone #'s). Since the Blackberry is my main work phone, I need to be able to locate a phone number quickly and dial the number. However, scrolling through ALL those contacts is frustrating me. I know that I can use the find feature. But when I try to type the first letter of the first name, I can only do that when the letter I need is the FIRST letter on the key. (Example: Vicki... if I click on Find and then type the "CV" key, a C is place in the field. If I type the key twice, a get CC.

Are there are some quick ways to pull up a number?

And what is the Contact icon for? All my contacts are in the address book, so I can't figure out what the CONTACT icon is used for.

Any tips?

Anna

[bremere]

if you go into the phone option, then click in and go to options...general options...phone list view...change to most used....this will display the most frequestly dialed number's in the phone list instead of your call log....hope it helps

[AlexG]

Hmmm. Good tip to use the options - although I couldn't get the 'most used' list to show permanently on my 7100v despite changing the setting.

The frustration that you mention is the SureType technology which is great for writing text but a bit confusing for the address book. However it still works properly. Have faith and keep pressing the letters - even though the text box contains gobbledegook - it will bring up all possible letter combinations in your phone book eventually getting you to the right entry. But if you can't abide it, switch it off temporarily by holding the [* />>] key.

Another option is to use filters in the address book (which are confusingly called categories in the actual address book entries of my BB). During working hours you could have the phone book filtered to just show the 30 required entries.

[netspirit]

Thanks for the tips. I changed my Phone Options to Most Used. That will be very helpful.

The filters/categories are a bit confusing, but I can see how that will be helpful if I can figure out how to categorize everyone. I have all my contacts in categories in my Outlook. I tried to put several people in two different categories. This works in Outlook, but keeps confusing the Blackberry on sync. I will play with this some more.

thanks for the ideas.

[DiRN]

Like AlexG was saying, pressing the AS key should show you all entries with a first and/or last name beginning in either an A or an S. Following that with the ER key leads to first and last names starting with AE, AR, SE, and SR.

[netspirit]

Ok.. I see that now. That really narrows down how many names are viewable.

Thanks.

[bodybuilder]

thanks. :space: