I am going to buy my fiorst BlackBerry a 7130....Do I need to have a BlackBerry server running to take advantage of the push technology? How do you change the main screen from text menus to the icons instead?

How is the voice quality of this phone on a CDMA network? A friend has one on GSM and it sound a bit crappy, but I'm thinking its the network.

Thanks

Lots of questions.... welcome.

Push email can be done with or without your PC being involved. Sounds like you're looking for a personal 7130. VZW give you an account with their web client in which you can setup up to 10 pop or imap mail accounts.

Their web client does all the work for sending email to your BB device. And you also have a direct email address something like

As far as list vs icon, the 7130 comes with the Verizon icon theme. But there is also a list-type theme available on the unit. Voice quality on the 7130 is about the best I've heard. Had many cell phone and this one does the best for sound quality.

I just got mine from verizon and it rocks! came with 4 themes in both menu and icon styles that you can simply change up in options.

I use both http and pop/smtp email accounts and they work great!

Heres the differnece:

you will get one email address like ...
you will have up to 9 more pop/smtp or http accounts you can add to your BB.

when you get your pop/smtp addresses setup, your BB will poll your pop server every 15 minutes for new messages whereas if someone sends you an email to your address it is received almost immediately (within 1 minute) of the sender sending the email.

There is no way that i know of to force your BB to check for email at a faster increment that every 15 minutes for your pop/smtp email accounts.

hope that helps