I'm a new member and am ready to pull the trigger on purchasing the 8830 (Sprint is the carrier) - thanks in advance and sorry if these questions have been posted a thousand times before:

1. Does it sync all contacts, calendar, email, etc. with Outlook 2003 well? I'm sure it does, just wanted to know of any problems up front.

2. Can I get my Outlook email come directly from my PC - without having to put anything onto an exchange server? My company doesn't have that capability, so I just want to have my emails coming into my Outlook on my PC forwarded to my Blackberry

3. I've heard that you can't pull up pictures that are sent to you via text message (from friends on other carriers) with older Blackberry models. Can you pull up pictures sent to you in a text message with the 8830?

4. Any other problems/information I should know about before purchasing the 8830 from Sprint?

Again, thanks in advance for your help.

Good luck.

Welcome to the forums!

Here is the Sprint BIS website, in case you don't have it: https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?b...rint&locale=en

As for pictures, they have to be sent via MMS and then you can open then and save them on your device.

Thanks for the info - that Wiki has a lot of great info as well. So, according to the Wiki, it looks like I will be forwarding all my email using the BB Mail Connector.
So, the only real question I have is the syncing capability. My Outlook is installed and stored locally on my PC - will all the contacts and calendar info sync seamlessly with the 8830?

Actually, I'd recommend using the BIS services and provisioning the device to grab mail that way. It may comes a bit later, but will not require you to leave the computer on 24x7.

As for sync of contacts, tasks, etc., that will be provided by the Blackberry Desktop Manager.

Syncing of contacts, memos, tasks is seamless and easy.

Last question (well, maybe not):

If I go with the BIS service for email, rather than the BB Mail Connector, will all messages show up in the correct folder in my Outlook?

If I use the BB Mail Connector, emails that I send will show up in my "sent" folder in Outlook, deleted emails in "deleted", etc. - but I have to have the computer on 24X7.

The BIS service looks great, because I don't have to have my computer on, but will it still move all my messages to the correct folder once I get back into my Outlook?