The Blackberry Bold got me curious and I might decide to switch to a Blackberry device from my Treo 750. I have a lot of questions, so please excuse me: I am entirely new to the Blackberry and hope I will learn enough to make an educated decision. This is going to be a long post because I want to give you guys as much information as I can so that you can help me with my decision. I prefer to deal with real users instead of sales people. Not only are the majority of them in my experiences unknowledgeable and incompetent, they push for the most expensive plans and lie in order to sell a plan that is unsuitable for my usage.

Thank you for bearing with me as I have only embarked on my journey to purchasing a Blackberry two hours ago.

For just a quick summary of questions, please go to the bottom of my post.

Just for clarification, I am in the United States. I'm using an AT&T Treo 750 right now. I am currently paying $30 a month for their unlimited Internet usage and 1500 messages. I am also paying $5 a month for a Microsoft Exchange account. That makes a total of $35 a month for Internet and push e-mail.

My usage pattern: I rarely make any phone calls and will be using the Blackberry primarily to keep up with email and text messages, and occasionally using it to for surfing the Internet.

Regarding network speeds: Speed is not a problem for me: I have used the T-Mobile Dash on the EDGE network before. Though a little pokey, I do not mind because I only occasionally surf the Internet.

I am very interested in the Blackberry Bold. However I do have my concerns. Because I do not have any Blackberry service, I believe that I would be using BIS to pull mail from POP3 accounts.

It looks like I could just get the T-Mobile Blackberry Internet Service plan for $59.99 here on the TMO site.

I would like to use the Blackberry 9000/Bold on AT&T since they have an HSDPA connection. But I cannot seem to get a hold of an similar AT&T plan. In your guys' experience, what is the most economical solution for data heavy/low minutes usage?

Main Questions
1) How instant is the email pushed from a POP3 account? My primary accounts would be with gMail and 1and1.com.

2) I use Microsoft Outlook. Is there a reliable and professional way to keep my emails/contacts/calendar/tasks all synchronized? I do not want to have to be dealing with hacks and the like.

3) Can I use an e-mail alias when sending an e-mail? I own my own domain and have an email address there. I would like to use it so that the sender's e-mail address is my own and not something like .

4) Is there any reason that I need to keep my Microsoft Exchange account?

So basically when the Blackberry Bold becomes available, I'm switching from an AT&T Treo 750 coupled with a Microsoft Exchange account to Blackberry service on whichever network is cheapest. What provider should I switch to, and what plan do I sign up for?

Thank you very much everyone.

I too am a n00b, that made the switch from a Treo 750 to the BB curve 8310. I must say that this was a great move, I love my BB! Being a n00b I can attempt to answer you questions with information I have found on this site and others.

1. There is a 5-15 min. delay. Others have mentioned a work around this.... forward your email to your blackberry.net email that you will get when you sign up for Blackberry service. The BB email is virtually instant, you can forward and leave a copy on your pop server as well so you can retreive it at your PC later.

2. I use Outlook, like I did with my Treo, no difference here. Except it will not sync the emails.

3. Once the email account is created you can log into the BB server and change the reply to address, or you can send email through your POP account on your BB

4) This one I can not answer, but I don't see why you would.

I am in Canada, so I can not comment on service providers, but shop around see who will give you the best deal.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

1. instantly as long as you forward your emails to the blackberry account you set up if you get the BIS or BB e-mail add-on. i have all of my e-mail forwarded to my BIS account and get pushed e-mails instantly.

2. you can sync outlook with the blackberry desktop program by USB or bluetooth. calendar, contacts, and tasks will update, e-mails will not unless you set it up separately... the default for your bb e-mail is to reconcile directly with the e-mail servers and not an outlook account.

3. yes.

4. no, unless you're using it for work and they use exchange server... in that case, you should talk to your IT manager and possibly have to get the BB Exchange Server add-on instead of the BIS package. or you can go with BIS, and have your e-mail forwarded to a pop3 account which is reforwarded to your blackberry account.