[stevetaz]

Hi Tarek and welcome to EB:

You have asked a very difficult question, should you buy a BB?

That is very tough to answer as many people have joined the BB fold and love it, but a few were not happy.

It is a very different platform from Palm, WM, etc. The BB platform is an excellent one that has some vey strong plusses like push email, a rock-solid OS that has not crashed on me once in 16 months, comes with many apps and functions I would have had to purchase separately when I was using a Palm Treo.

It is not an entertainment device like an iPhone, but it does act as an MP3 player, plays videos, can sync with your iTunes library (non-DRM) and such. The web capabilities are not up to par with an iPhone, but it works very well for me. Then again, the BB is generally better at business functions than an iToy. The newer BB devices like the Bold, 8900 Curve, Storm have all improved the entertainment functions greatly, but a BB still has the core of what it was designed for....A secure, reliable email device that has expended it's functions, but did not forget it's roots.

It will sync flawlessly with Outlook and the PIM functions all work to give you control over tasks, appointments and such, but I will say that the calendar is not as pretty and polished as the Palm calendar. But then again when I had the Treo I couldn't look at the calendar until after I rebooted often because of the freezes and hiccups the Palm OS seemed known for.

It does not play as nice with Apple computers, but even that can be helped by purchasing a third-party app, MissingSync.

Personally I think everyone should try a BB and the 8900 Curve is an excellent choice.

Not sure if this is of help and if you have specific things you would like to see noted, let us know.

Visit and post often.....