[Addicted123]

Originally Posted by Chiefster

Not having MMS seems like it kind of sucks. The phone is certainly capable of it. Most everyone has it. The camera is 2MP, which makes me want to send pictures more often than with my old phones.

So what happens if someone sends me an MMS message. Well answer, I just had a friend send me one(from their Sprint phone =P), it sends a text message with a link to some Sprint site where the picture is

I got my Sprint pearl a couple days ago and was surprised by the same thing. I had virtually the same experience as you. I thought something was wrong when it didn't let me send the picture and told me that I needed to set up e-mail (which I didn't do yet). I didn't understand why I needed e-mail to send the picture.

Last night, I received a picture e-mail from a friend and it linked to a sprint address where I could download the picture.

It sucks that I can't send people pictures to their phones. Most don't have the ability to check e-mail on phones and I don't have people's e-mails stored in my address book contacts so it's a big hassle.

[ABarrera]

oh wow maybe i did not realize that when i send someone else a picture they will also have to go through email...that sucks. Hardly anyone i send pictures to has an email capable phone.

[Addicted123]

Originally Posted by ABarrera

Thanks, I am about to get my pearl on saturday...how do you like yours? Any complaints?

I have had mine for about a day but haven't had time to play around with it too much. I tested out Sprint TV which was pretty cool but I wonder how great the content will be and how quickly everything will be updated. I was coming back from a Blackhawks game and it would have been cool to see the highlights on the phone, but all they had 5 hours after the game was a lame interview with the goalie. I forgot my phone today and was going to test the Sprint Navigation. Last night, I just plugged in a random address and the voice turn-by-turn directions looked like they were working because it gave me the name of the first road I should turn on.

I think it will take a little bit of time to get used to the keyboard. I have never had a full qwerty keyboard, so I don't mind the two letters per number thing that much. It's actually a slight upgrade for me over 3 letters per numbers I suppose. But when I first tried to type, I found that it took me an incredibly long time to type out a message. I hope I can get used to the layout.

You can't beat the size of the phone. It fits nicely in my pocket and it was the main reason I wanted the phone. It packs a powerful punch for such a tiny little thing. I don't want to lug around a gigantic phone although I was close to waiting out my sprint contract and going for the iphone.

Besides lack of MMS, the biggest disappointment for me is the internet browser. This might be the thing that makes me return the phone and just go with apple's iphone. I only tested a couple pages, but nothing appeared nicely on the screen. Pictures, text, and links were scattered all over the place and it really wasn't a good user experience. I read in another thread that a free miniopera browser download is a great upgrade. So maybe I'll try that out if the browser continues to annoy me.

Maybe I haven't had a chance to play with the phone enough, but another thing I found annoying was the messages screen. It just looked jumbled and odd and not presented well. I just didn't understand the layout and it seems like messages weren't grouped in a convenient manner.

$30 for navigation, unlimited data, sprint tv, and unlimited texts is a pretty nice price. Overall, I am happy with the phone, but it's nothing too thrilling. With a 2MP camera, I would have been eager to send more picture messages, but that doesn't bother me too much. I'm hoping the new browser download will make the internet browsing experience better and maybe it's just a matter of getting used to the messaging screens. The best thing about the phone is its size.

[ABarrera]

Thanks for all of that information...let me know how the turn by turn is when you actually use it in the car and about the download for the browser and if that helps. Great Review...thanks again for the info!

[Chiefster]

The Opera browser isn't bad, it shows you the whole web page and you zoom in and out to see details. There are probably some shortcuts I don't know about yet to make it an even better experience.. I need to read the instructions

Biggest problem with the iPhone browser which is great, but the network doesn't compare to 3G.

[Bjaardker]

So as I go into my 3rd day with the Sprint pearl I'm starting to question if I will be keeping it past the 30 day trial period, and one of the major reasons is the lack of MMS. The reason I got the 8130 over the 8830 was the camera. My wife & I sent each other picture messages all the time when we were with USCC. Now in order for me to send her a picture message on her centro, I have to take pic, e-mail it to her gmail account. Then text her that I sent a picture. She then has to open the gmail application & go into her e-mail and possibly DL an attachment. That sucks.

Suretype works, but it's not much faster than t9 with a regular dialpad. I was much faster with the qwerty on my old work provided 7000 series.

The GPS is amazing. Telenav works well athough it doesn't follow the standard protocol on how to close the app. Instead of pressing the menu button, and selecting exit, you have to press the back button for it to pop up the menu.

Bottom line, the only thing that I was wanting with the pearl was the camera, and with no MMS, I'm wondering if it's worth it.

Oh well.. I guess we'll see. 25 more days to go before I have to make a decision.

[vawireless]

to my understanding, you can send a mms message from the sprint 8130 via email to the email address of the phone, such as phone # @messaging.sprintpcs.com, and this should appear as a mms to the recipient.

[FastZ]

Originally Posted by vawireless

to my understanding, you can send a mms message from the sprint 8130 via email to the email address of the phone, such as phone # @messaging.sprintpcs.com, and this should appear as a mms to the recipient.

But that's only to a Sprint customer. How would you be able to do that when the person you want to send a picture to isn't a customer of Sprint?

[Chiefster]

every cell phone has an address like, each carrier has thier own email extension, and they all start with the 10 digit phone number

[FastZ]

Originally Posted by Chiefster

every cell phone has an address like, each carrier has thier own email extension, and they all start with the 10 digit phone number

Interesting. I did not know that. I guess I'll need to Google a bit and try to find a list of those addresses for each carrier. If this truly works just like a regular picture mail service, then I think I could live with that until something better comes along for us Sprint customers.


Edit: That was simple. I Googled up a list of cellular carriers and their respective cell phone email addresses.
SMS 411: How to send email to a phone

[vawireless]

listing of all carriers

http://www.blackberryforums.com/blac...ons-usage.html

[Chiefster]

I tried sending an email to a friend of mine (also a Sprint customer) with a picture attachment, to their phone address and they said they never got it, or at least no picture. Anyone else tried this?

[ABarrera]

this is upsetting...im wondering if i should just get the 8830...it just seems like too much hassle to be sending pictures. this sucks.

[ABarrera]

maybe it's not as difficult as im thinking...

[FastZ]

Originally Posted by Chiefster

I tried sending an email to a friend of mine (also a Sprint customer) with a picture attachment, to their phone address and they said they never got it, or at least no picture. Anyone else tried this?

I tried this also shortly after I found the phone address thing. The person said they never received it. I could send messages via MS Outlook from my work computer and they'd end up as text messages on my BB but as far as sending a picture via email to another cellular user, it was a no-go.

[Addicted123]

Originally Posted by ABarrera

this is upsetting...im wondering if i should just get the 8830...it just seems like too much hassle to be sending pictures. this sucks.

It was a complete surprise to me. I don't understand how you can have a 2MP camera on a phone made specifically for consumers and not allow picture messages. It's one of the last things I would've thought I had to consider to determine if I liked the phone or not.

[ABarrera]

im hearing different things from different people. so im still confused about all this. ok i know that if someone sends me a pic i will get a text with a link that brings me to the pic...but when im sending a pic to someones phone i need to figure out what their phones "email address" is as listed above...and then it will send them a text with the link...but if they dont have internet access they wont get it? Please let me know if im correct. Thanks.

[Anikko]

When emailing MMS from a blackberry or any email address you must use the picture mail email address such as
The way i found out what email address to use was by having a friend send a picture mail to my gmail email address. Once i received it i recorded the senders email address. I then tested emailing a picture to that address and had success.
I am under the impression that the major networks all use a similar system. Try it out to get the email addresses.

I am hopeful for an update for the device that includes MMS.

[dwood721]

Is there any new information on this? Does upgraded to the newest BB OS fix the issue?

[gmack419]

Had the same problem with Sprint. They advertise MMS for the BB, but it doesn't work. As above, Sprint suggested using the phone's email address for MMS.

I spent a little over two hours with Sprint tech support-worked on reloading the drivers, since they're web delivered, the service books, all that nonsense-Finally found out that NEXTEL's BlackBerry's will support it--its only the Sprint software. They then tried to tell me that my phone didn't support it--I corrected them politely, and told them my phone DID support it, but THEY had disabled it through their software. They eventually conceded that fact. At which point I politely asked for a refund for the services I was paying for--which they were happy to provide me, actually. When I corrected them and said I wanted a MONTHLY RECURRING refund, they gave me problems. I argued that I was paying for the unlimited service through sprint, and the $600 phone they sold me advertised its ability to provide MMS--we went in circles for a while, and I knew I wouldn't get anywhere. But it was fun messing with them.

Long story short--Nextel BB's support MMS, but not Sprint Service.