Hi guys,

IM interested in the 81 series of blackberry but neither my service providers shops ie o2 or the car phone warehouse can help me both of the places contradict one another. so can i ask a number of questions to any 8100 users here.

1. Can i use the 81 series to retrieve my hotmail emails.
2. The 8110 has gained Gps but loses WIFI what difference does it really make.
3. If i decided on the 8120 could i buy a gps receiver and pay for the wayfinder software. will this software use up my memory card slot or is it an upload.
4. I dont really fancy blue as my cover but my service provider only does it in blue, can i buy after market covers and say change it to silver or chrome or even black.

I think i have asked all my questions except one between a sony ericsson k850i and the say 81 series of phones ( forgetting about camera's ) which would you go for?

Thank you in appreciation of your answers
Andy

1. Maybe not. Works for some older free accounts, and the paid accounts, from what I read here on BBF. Does not work for newer free accounts.

2. Depends on you. GPS is useful if you are away from home and need to find some place. One way WiFi is useful is if you are frequently in hotzone but don't have good cell service. UMA could be useful to you, but I don't know if your carrier provides it.

3. You can use a bluetooth gps puck and use free mapping application or a pay service. Maps are downloaded as you go. As far as I know, there are still none that use onboard maps, but someone will correct me there if I'm wrong.

4. Look at a skin.

Yes, through the BlackBerry Internet Service

It really depends on what you want. For me, WiFi is more valuable than GPS as I can do GPS with an external puck, but cannot with WiFi

Yes you could purchase this. For a BB, you'd most likely use software hosted with a service provider ... or you could use google maps for free.

Yes absolutely. Search the forums for people that do mods to their HHs.

Personally I would get the 8320 for the full keyboard; but if you're ok without the full keyboard the 8120 is an excellent choice.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

As far as #4 there are housings available if you desire ti change it

Cheers for that,

What is a uma and you say skin i take it you mean one of them neophrene covers

Andy

UMA ... on a BB it is effectively VOIP phone calls. Yes, for a skin, one of those covers.

Where online would i get these new housings that ezrunner has spoken off. ( Ebay )

Andy

That's where I got mine

Just checked ebay.co.uk dont have what i looking for ebay.com however ( usa )however have then but they dont ship to uk. If i was to go for the 8120 which gps reciever would be best suited for the likes of sat nav. I have just breifly looked at the wayfinder software.

Andy

I have:

Globalsat BT-359 Bluetooth GPS receiver review

and

Freedom Input Ltd - Freedom Keychain GPS 2000

Both are great. Search through the forums here for individual reviews on them.

as far as hotmail goes, it hit or miss. this is not a limitation on the device, or the BIS but rather microsoft. like most companies they are in it for the money and want you to pay their premium services. I have signed up for a recent hotmail account and it integrates just fine with my BIS accounts. However, I am not able to reproduce this fluke. I have created about 10 email accounts on hotmail to try and get another that works, and they will not. its like winning some kind of lottery heh.

ok I have looked into gps puks/ dongles but iam still a little unsure of what software to add into a 8120 bb. I like the idea of the gps keyfob as it woul dbe mainly used in the car for the likes of sat nav for the simple reason i dont like the likes of having those screens stuck on my window and besides i can utilise the bb to do 2 things, act as a phone when needed and also as sat nav. What i looking to know is this with the keyfob gps receiver what software would be compatable for the 8120 in the uk i searched the wayfinder one but said its not compatable with the 8120.

Cheers guys this info is helping me alot
Andy

Sorry guys another quic one can you change the colour of the trackball on an 8120.

C ya

no, you can only change the trackball on the Pearl 8100 series.

Any ideas on software for the uk with regards gps dongle and sat nav for the 8120

Andy

yes - I was digging around in some old issues of Pc Pro as they did a feature on smartphones which included satnav options.

Out of the 5 that they looked at, they said only 2 would work with the Blackberry and these were Wayfinder and Telemaps.

Haven't got access to the review atm, so I'll confirm that it's those two when I get home.

Thanks its much appreciated, still hoping to kill 2 birds with one Blackberry ie smartphone with sat nav. not to fussed on the curve.

Andy

the wayfinder site doesn't list the pearl 8120 as being compatible :(

and on emailing them I got the 'as soon as a version is compatible with your phone it will be listed on our website'

Thank you very much for doing this for me im not very computer literate whaen it comes to things like this. I'm also looking to find an email account that works with blackberry so i can have my hotmail emails forwarded to it so i can retrieve then on my blackberry (when i get it that is ).

Tornadodivine i notice you are o2 what email service do you use to retrieve yours, and have you heard of people getting hotmails forwarded to there blackberry's

As you can probably guess i want a blackberry but want to utilise all the features of it

Andy