With more than 3,700 authoritative posts on Howard Forums, Greg Gebhardt is one of the online world's best-known BlackBerry authorities.
In today's new BlackBerry 8700 to BlackBerry Pearl thread (linked below), Greg makes an interesting comment.
He's tried the Pearl 8100 but it wasn't exactly his thing.
Why?
Greg writes that in his opinion, "the build quality on the 8100 is worst than the 8700. Nothing is as good as the old 75XX series."
That's a BlackBerry 7520 over there on the right.
Then Greg adds that he believes the Pearl is made of a cheap-enough quality that, in his judgement, "the cosmetics.. will not last long at all."
Readers, would you disagree or agree with Greg about either of his points: the Pearl 8100 is fragile and the 75xx's were/are the sturdiest BlackBerrys ever made?
BBHub reader Benjamin writes that he just got a Nextel BlackBerry 7520 from a friend.
Benjamin has tried to unlock it, but has not been successful to date.
"I read on the Web that (the 7520) can't be unlocked to operate on (a) GSM network," Benjamin writes. "What about CDMA?"
He hopes that in an implied best-case scenario, it is possible to do both.
Having never been in that position myself, I hand this one off to the assembled multitude of eyeballs that are currently gracing my virtual presence by reading this post.
Well, BBHub readers, have any of you unlocked a BlackBerry 7520? What are your experiences, and advice, if any, for your fellow BBHub reader?
When it comes to SprintNextel BlackBerry "service," the best descriptor I can use rhymes with ducks.
This is true for so many reasons.
The overarching one is that more than a year after Sprint's acquisition of Nextel, they are, except on paper, still two separate companies.
Yes, I know that there are challenges in merging two separate systems together. But did you know that without human intervention, Sprint and Nextel's customer billing systems aren't only not interfaced with one another, they are unknown to each other. Sprint customer service can't pull up my BlackBerry records, which pertain to an account opened on Nextel. And then when you go to the Nextel site in hopes of finding this info online, such page requests automatically bounce over to Sprint.
And then there's the matter of finding a parts replacement. Say a new battery for my BlackBerry 7520.
Turns out that the reason my BlackBerry 7520 can no longer take a charge is because I was a bit too rough on it.
I had suspected this- rather than a battle-fatigued BlackBerry battery - was the case.
As they told me at the shop yesterday (Communications Northwest), they see this a lot from customers who either push the charger into the USB port too hard, or yank it out with too much force.
I can't say which I did for sure, but tracing the problem, I think I can map it back to when I was packing to leave my San Diego hotel room last week, and yanked the charger out of my BlackBerry a bit too quickly and forcefully.
When I did that, one of the pins inside the USB port apparently got unsoldered (or is that de-soldered)?
The techs at the shop said they see this fairly often. Small comfort, because I am supposed to know about this stuff, and follow the finer points of BlackBerry care.
Fine example I set.
Now I gotta pay $35 for a new BlackBerry that the store should get tomorrow.
That I can handle, but then I got to call RIM and get them to transfer my stored messages to my replacement device.
One which I vow before all of y'all that I will treat gently.
I'll let you know how the BlackBerry replacement procedure goes.
I'm just off a nine-day business trip. Four hotels, five flight legs, lots of packing and unpacking. And ouf course I took my BlackBerry 7520 with me.
But, 'shamed to say, I treated my BlackBerry and associated gear quite mean. As a result, I am going to have to go to the Nextel store tomorrow.
My purpose in telling this story is to counsel you against similar transgressions.
First, after I charged my BlackBerry in my Oakland, Calif. hotel room, I yanked the charger out of the socket a bit too quickly. This bent the plug to the point it wouldn't fit in the socket any more.
Using my hands, I was unable to fashion the plug back into its configuration. It was then that I found a knife on the previous night's room service tray. That did the trick.
But that was only a prelude to a bigger hassle. One I am dealing with now. G-r-r.
Naggie is a brilliant application that uses the GPS in BlackBerry models that have them to let you set location based reminders. I love the idea - just think about your last trip to Lowe's when you bought everything BUT the item you went there for in the first place. That happens to me a lot.
Naggie lets you set a reminder that will fire when you get close to a certain location (like Lowe's for me). It won't let you forget to get light bulbs at Lowe's next time.
Naggie's nearing a 2.0 release and the developer dropped me a line asking for beta testers. If you're interested in beta testing the new release, leave a comment below and Andrew will be in touch. I did a review of the previous version here and I'm looking forward to putting this new release through the paces.
Want to know the specific paces I am planning to put Naggie through?
On the BlackBerry section of Experts-Exchange, reader royaltech strongly implies that some of the sync process between the Outlook 2007 Beta and his Nextel BlackBerry 7520 is a royal pain.
"Since I installed Office 2007 my Nextel BB 7520 will not sinc the text fields of Notepad and contacts," he writes. "I have the latest d/l Desktop manager 4.1 and the handheld 4.1, what more should I do?"
WellRed has the answer. It's a rather well-read workaround, but it will help you get there.
Yesterday I was flying cross-country to Boston for the VON Show. (I cover Internet Telephony, too).
Had logged my 26 (I am not exaggerating) appointments on my (you only get one guess).
On the plane (with my Nextel BlackBerry 7520's radio off, of course)- I realized, much to my horror, that the scroll wheel would only let me navigate the theme screen vertically and not horizontally. So getting to my BlackBerry Calendar was a four-step process.
So I did something radical. I removed the battery. Then I re-inserted it.
I gotta tell ya, when that hourglass keeps running for several minutes, I freak. Freak as in "what if the theme screen doesn't appear this time?"
I put the BB away for a few minutes- crossed my fingers- and then...
AIRCHARGE (not shouting, for that's the way they want to spell their name) credit card devices are now able to be used by mobile merchants to accept credit card payments over BlackBerry devices.
Typical scenarios could be for furniture delivery, limo rides (fu-fu, woo-hoo) trade show tickets sold on-site, and even flea market booths.
The central functionality of te Pipeline Data product is the AIRCHARGE JavaME software for wireless payment processin. It is certified to run on the Sprint network that services the BlackBerry 7130e and BlackBerry 7520.
The AIRCHARGE payment processing software can be loaded onto the via BlackBerry over-the-air (OTA) and is compatible with virtually any merchant processing account.
You may know that when these GSG's are updated, we generally like to screen cap the device's diagram, as well as give you the Table of Contents. TOC so you will know if it is worth the time to click the download link and read thru the doc, you know.
"Right now it only rings 3 times and then goes to voice mail," she writes. "I have looked at 'Options' under the cell icon and 'Profiles' but do not see where we can change this."
It was then that fellow user Bill steered Candace in the right direction.
"Call customer service...they can change the ring time," he suggests. "They default to 3 rings, but I had mine changed to 6 rings then voicemail picks up."
Candace took a (bad pun alert) "Shine" to Bill's advice.
"Called and got the ring numbers changed!," Candace writes. "They call it 'extended ringing' and it is a time thing not a ring thing. So basically you get 15 seconds of ringing which equates to 6-7 rings. And there is no charge - bonus!"
Canadian landline and wireless provider TELUShas now added Ottawa to its list
of metropolitan areas equipped for its branded TELUS mobility Wireless High Speed service.
Among other BlackBerry products, TELUS carries the BlackBerry 7250 and the BlackBerry 7130e, both of which can be
made compatible with Wireless High Speed.
The BlackBerry 7250 lists for $549.99 with no service contract to as low as $99.99 for some three-year TELUS
service contracts. The BlackBerry 7130e ranges from $249.99 for some three year contracts up to $549.99 for the unit
alone.
They specialize in Global Positioning System chips, such as those used in the BlackBerry7520 and
BlackBerry7100i.
Seems like SIRF had a
real bad day on Wall Street yesterday- dipping as much as 13% on the face of investor disillusionment at slow
earnings forecasts offered by the San Jose, Calif. based company yesterday.
Now what should BlackBerry users make of this, especially since SIRF also makes GPS chips for Garmin, Motorola as
well as General Motors' OnStar service?
Perhaps a general assumption that orders might be down because most everyone who wants a GPS-enabled device-
BlackBerry or no- already has one?
Hmm, maybe we are too early in the upgrade cycle for those GPS users to feel compelled about replacing their
unit?
Last night I was sitting in a movie theater with my date. The movie had not started.
I thought I had turned off my Blackberry, but apparently I had not. It was in my jeans pocket.
So I shuffle around to ease myself into a more comfortable position. A minute or so later, her phone flashes that
she has a voice mail. The message did not indicate an originating phone number.
When she played it back, there was more than a minute of strange scratching and rubbing noises. My date had
wondered if a family member had tried to call, but for whatever reason - routine or not - the gist of the message had
not gotten thru.
Then after the movie, I went into my BlackBerry message folder. Turns out that in shuffling the Blackberry around
in my pocket, I had accidentally redialed the voice mail call I had placed to her 15 minutes before we entered the
theater.
She lectured me about loose BlackBerrys in tight pockets, and what had happened as a consequence of my
carelessness.
Lesson learned. I'm gonna order a holster for my Blackberry 7520 now...
With more than 3,700 authoritative posts on Howard Forums, Greg Gebhardt is one of the online world's best-known BlackBerry authorities.
BBHub reader Benjamin writes that he just got a Nextel BlackBerry 7520 from a friend.
When it comes to SprintNextel BlackBerry "service," the best descriptor I can use rhymes with ducks.
Naggie is a brilliant application that uses the GPS in BlackBerry models that have them to let you set location based reminders. I love the idea - just think about your last trip to Lowe's when you bought everything BUT the item you went there for in the first place. That happens to me a lot.
On the 
