Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. My wife settled on the 'crack'berry which is now a permanent feature.
:) Regards, Patrick Zhasper wrote: > On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> 2009/8/5 elliott-brennan <[email protected]>: >>> Hi all, >>> >>> My wife is setting up her own business. She'll >>> need quite easy access to e-mail and is thinking >>> of getting a Blackberry (not sure of which mobile >>> provider yet, though we're currently with Three on >>> our other phones). >>> >>> I don't have and haven't used a Blackberry, so am >>> seeking any advice regarding syncing the thing >>> with my desktop (8.04) and accessing e-mail (e.g.. >>> by having a gmail account and then IMAP'ing that >>> for the Blackberry). I understand gmail has an app >>> for the Blackberry (and similar phones) so I'd be >>> interested to know of people's experiences with that. >> A simple solution is for her to set her mail to automatically forward >> to the Blackberry's mail address. >> >> That way, the Blackberry will alert her as soon as a message comes >> through, and she can view it on the phone. The original message still >> stays in the main mail account. > > > There's also the "Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server" > coming later this month - > http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/mobile.html > > I'm not clear on what that does though; it looks like it might need you to > run your own BES, which is probably too much overhead for a one-person > business (but I don't understand crackberrys well enough to understand how > this works for small business anyway - I think it involves forwarding all > your mail to Canadia and having RIM push it to the phone?). > > Oh wait: there's a system requirements section that says you need "Windows > 2003 Server SP2 (approximately 1GB of disk space per GAC for BES user) and > BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 Service Pack 6 Maintenance Release 4" - so > I guess you do need to be running your own server somewhere. > > The best gmail integration I've seen is (not surprisingly) on the G1; it > also has a physical keyboard, but the battery life is notoriously not even > as good as the iPhone. The notifications on the G1 are quite nice though. > > Personally I'm reasonably happy with the iPhone; but I don't do a whole lot > of message writing there, I mostly use it to catch up on threads while I'm > out of the office, and anything more than a quick reply waits until I'm back > at my desk. > >> >>> Any other advice or information would be most >>> appreciated, including suggestions for other >>> devices. She wants a full keyboard like the >>> Blackberry, along with a reasonable screen size >>> when typing and for reading e-mail. >> Other manufacturers have Blackberry-style devices now (with a >> keyboard). Take a look around and you might find another that suits >> her needs better. I've seen some companies standardising on the Nokia >> E Series or even the iPhone. > > > I have a friend with the nokia E-series blackberry clone, and he's quite > happy with it. I have another friend with a similar phone who prefers the > mobile gmail app to the web app, and emails almost exclusively from his > phone. > > Personally I think they're both nuts... > > >> >> But if you really want something nice (although I'm horribly biased), >> there are the Android-based phones. > > > The only Android so far with a physical keyboard is the G1 though. I find > the on-screen keyboard on my iPhone to be better than the G1s on-screen > keyboard - but I hear that later devices have higher resolution touch > screens, so the keyboard works better. > > >> -- >> Bring choice back to your computer. >> http://www.linux.org.au/linux >> -- >> SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ >> Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html >> > -- Registered GNU/Linux User 368634 www.youcantdothatinlinux.com -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
