[tbone]

I've been w/ T-mobile for 7 years (yes...7) and have been more or less satisfied w/ the service. I couldn't believe it when they told me I could get a 7100 for $99 (after rebate). I had been drooling over these but couldn't justify the $300 for it.

I'm about to start a new job and expect to be away from my desk a fair amount so I decided to get a BB to stay a little more connected. I got it a week ago and have been trying to learn as much as I can. Since it didn't come with a manual, I've been all over the internet looking for answers.

Every day I'm more impressed with what this thing can do. I really get a kick out of finding a new shortcut or "feature".

I found this site on Friday and have learned a *TON* since then. I'm really impressed by the knowledge and willingness to help that so many of you exhibit. Mark is a GOD!

I know how annoying it is for newbie's to fill up msgboards with a question that has been asked a million times before so I've done my best to answer my own questions. Here are the ones that I couldn't find an answer to or that I suspect the answers may have changed based on the date they were originally posted. Any help you guys can give would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some details that may help with answers:

Model: 7100t
Provider: TMO
OS: 3.8.0.128
Theme: Small Icons (found here, thanks)
BES: No

Here they are in no particular order:

1. Did any of you get a printed manual with your device? I have a friend that says he got one with his, ordered about a week before more me. I called twice to Cust Svc and was told that they don't come with manuals. I know I can get it online, but I really like having a physical and compact manual to read whenever I'm not online. Not too important, just curious.

2. Is there support for Hotmail. I've seen conflicting answers on this. I tried adding it through the BWC and couldn't seem to do it. My guess is that it's not supported. If not, is this just a TMO thing? I read a few reviews before purchase and several of them specifically named Hotmail as being supported.

3. Speaking of BWC, is there a friendlier URL I can memorize than the one with the Querystring parameters? I saw some other carriers have created "friendly" URLs, but not T-Mobile.

4. If I send a test email to my tmo.blackberry.net account, I get it right away. (Actually I can't believe how fast it gets there) I added a second email account and have been sending random emails to test it over the last several days. I understand that it "pushes" every 15 mins or so. Is this an option or is this built-in to the service? I am definitely not seeing this kind of response time. I sometimes get the messages up to 6 hours after they were sent. I know there are a lot of links in the chain. Can you recommend any tips to help debug??

**This may help: I called 611 a couple of days after I got the device to see if this was normal. I got to a "specialist" and he had me reboot by removing the batt. and he did a "Network reset". A couple of minutes after that I got all the messages that I had been waiting for--maybe just a coincidence.

5. I'm very interested in creating my own theme at some point. As best I can tell this is still not (yet) practical. It sounds like RIM is working on it...Can anyone confirm? I am hoping it will be as simple as creating a custom skin for WinAmp.

6. I understand that if I'm not using BES, there's no hurry to install 4.0. I downloaded it from TMO yesterday, but didn't install it. It sounds like a few people had issues and I should wait. Is this right or am I missing something?

Thanks for your attention...hopefully I can get some answers to any/all of these questions. Sorry to be so longwinded!

[tbone]

I guess I should've broken this up into individual posts per question....

[djrobsd]

#1 - I got a manual with mine. It's not very detailed, but it works..

#2 - I haven't tried, but I'm guessing you would need to sign up for the hotmail plus or whatever the non-free one is, same goes for Yahoo. You CAN read your email at yahoo.com or hotmail.com through the browser, but it's a royal pain. If you sign up for the non-free Hotmail, then you can configure the BWC to pull the mail using POP3.

#3 - If you find out the answer i'd LOVE to know!!

#4 - When I set up my AOL account I had the same problem. Some mail would take 2 or 3 days to get there. I decided to just remove the AOL account, since I only use it for sharing promotional music with my fellow DJ friends anyway, and obviously the BB isn't big enough for that.

#6 - I'm waiting!!!

[JDBorges187]

3- Why dont you just use www.t-mobile.com/bwc

[sbagdan]

In answer to the slow email push, here is MY solution.. BTW...I have been with T-Mobile for 3 years and had a 7230 for over a year and a half....

I set my POP email accounts to "store & forward" (ask your ISP if they can help you with this, it is really easy, and should be FREE! If you have a problem, PM me for more info). I have 10 email accounts "forwarding" to my Blackberry (now a 7290, and still with TMO!). I get the email on my BB BEFORE I get it on Outlook!! It is SOOOO fast, I LOVE IT!!!

Again, DO NOT USE the BWC to Push/pull your email, have all of your POP emails forwarded to the Blackberry...

Just my 2 cents!

[tbone]

Update: I started my new job on monday and added my new email address. I'm getting them SUPER quick...I'm stoked. I haven't timed it, but it's definitely quick.

Now I just need to find some best practices on keeping multiple email accounts organized (using folders, changing signatures, etc.)

Can you change the "from" address on the fly or only in the BWC?

thanks for the help guys!