just got blackberry

[virtualdude]

Hello folks. My girlfriend works at a very public place with thousands of people traveling in her area every day. Recently a 7290 Cingular and a 7250 Verizon Blackberry were each lost and not claimed (the owners are probably long gone never to come back). I now have these BB's in my possession.

I have a few questions:

1. Neither of these units turn on. Is it worth my money to buy the battery charger? Am I going to be able to get one of these activated & put in my name?
2. If I turn one on after charging it, will the owners name and contact information be available to me?
3. Which of these units is better? I use Verizon for my cell phone and it has the best coverage in the area I live. I had Cingular for 30 days and cancelled it because the coverage sucked.
4. If I walk into a local Verizon store, does anybody think that they would be willing or hesitate to get it connected for me because I am not the one who bought it?


I'm kind of a computer geek and am comfortable that I'll figure out how to use it, if I invest the time and money to get it charged and activated. Having said that, can somebody post a web site that would list the available and recommended plans and what they include?

Thanks,
vd

[d_fisher]

Originally Posted by virtualdude

1. Neither of these units turn on. Is it worth my money to buy the battery charger? Am I going to be able to get one of these activated & put in my name?
2. If I turn one on after charging it, will the owners name and contact information be available to me?
3. Which of these units is better? I use Verizon for my cell phone and it has the best coverage in the area I live. I had Cingular for 30 days and cancelled it because the coverage sucked.
4. If I walk into a local Verizon store, does anybody think that they would be willing or hesitate to get it connected for me because I am not the one who bought it?

1. BlackBerrys can be charged with a simple USB to Mini USB cable. Install the BlackBerry Desktop Software to get the drivers which will decrease the amount of time needed to charge.
2. Once the BlackBerry powers on, you can go to Options > Owner. This assumes two things, 1) the BlackBerry is not password protected, 2) the owner entered their information on the Owner screen.
3. IMHO the 7250 and 7290 are about the same. No big difference between them.
4. Probably not going to happen. Any cellular carrier can look up who they sold a particular BlackBerry. If the orginal owner did the right thing and called their provider and reported the BlackBerry lost/stolen then the units will be useless. When a unit is reported stolen it can be restricted from connecting to the carriers network. Your best bet would be to try to determine who the device belong to based on the information on the device and contact them. They may offer a reward for the return of the device or be willing to sell it to you.