Hi

I've been using a Blackberry 8320 for the past couple of years.

I am out of my own country for a year and the data plans where I am are far too expensive to justify getting one, so I'm ditching the blackberry in favour for a very basic phone and when I return to the UK, I'll pick up another one.

I am going to sell the 8320.

Can someone tell me how to wipe the BlackBerry entirely so that no personal data is on it ie back to factory settings?

I do want to be able to to retrieve the contacts etc at a later date - what is the best way to do this? Please bear in mind when I buy another phone, it may not necessarily be a Blackberry, so I especially want the contacts to be in a generic (ie not Blackberry specific) format.

I've backed up my Blackberry quite a few times and the back up is in ipd format.

Thanks

Sync to either Outlook or Google. Those seem to be the most used and acceptable to most smartphones.

Once you wipe the data on a BB, it is gone.

You can use Jl_cmdr to wipe it and then restore the OS, or go to Options>Security Options>General Settings> "Wipe Handheld

Use Desktop Manager to do a backup - then make sure you save that backup file in a location where it won't get erased. If you want to extract the data, look for an app named ABC Amber Converter. There is a 30 day trial, and you can use it to open your contacts and other data in Excel and save them to files that you could possibly import into another device. If you stick with a BB, you can just restore the backup file to it.

Then use the Security Wipe feature to wipe your device (Options -> Security Options -> Security Wipe). That will remove all of your data from it.