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Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 10:33 pm
by GORDON
Got the Blackberry Tour. Upgraded my current Verizon plan. Reduced my minutes plan from what I needed last year, so the required $30 monthly internet charge was only an actual $10 increase to my bill. Phone itself was $150.
I am too tired to actually play with it tonight, but I will say that "Slacker Radio" is fun. Type in a band/song you like, and internet radio kicks in with similar songs, and the band you entered appears about once every 4 or 5 songs. This will help pass the time while mowing the back 1.25.
Internet is advertised as "unlimited broadband," but the speeds I have seen... maybe 4 times as fast as 56k dial-up. Nowhere near my home cable modem speeds.
The real question is, can I play TF2 on it? We will see.
Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 9:23 am
by GORDON
I am not pleased to learn that this thing was advertised to have GPS functionality... and looking into it, looks like another $10 a month. Grrr.
I hope I'm wrong, but there's the GPS navigation app, and it says $9.99 per month.
I am also moving over about a gig of mp3's.
1. I am pleased to see I can downscale the bitrate automatically during the download, to optimize space. I don't need 256k through earbuds.
2. Damn, this is SLOW to transfer while downscaling. SHould have started the process last night if I wanted to use it this afternoon.
Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 9:49 am
by GORDON
Also, while this file transfer is happening, I can't do anything else with the phone. That's sort of inconvenient.
I guess it wouldn't be a big deal if I was only moving one song/album at a time.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 2:41 pm
by GORDON
--
Desktop Manager 5.0 introduces the ability for a BlackBerry user to pair the BlackBerry smartphone with Desktop Manager using the Widcomm bluetooth stack.
Currently this only works with 32bit versions of Microsoft's operating systems. Computers running Microsoft XP 64bit or Vista 64bit will be unable to connect via Bluetooth using the Widcomm Bluetooth stack.
What this means is that I can't sync up my Vista64 laptop to my BB in order to sync things up or, more importantly, bridge to the internet when I have no local internet access points available. That was a major thing, for me. Only immediate solution is to load a 32 bit OS on this laptop.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 2:59 pm
by TPRJones
Ah! I never could get tha tworking and wondered why ... but not enough to research it.
Now I know. Thanks!
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:21 pm
by Leisher
FYI: The GPS thing is $9.99 a month.
Still, if you have internet, you have access to map sites...
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:23 pm
by TheCatt
Google Maps is free. For my WinMo, that does GPS automatically (using the phone's GPS device), and works decently.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:23 pm
by GORDON
Yeah, extra for GPS pissed me off because it wasn't advertised as a paid add-on.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 5:40 pm
by TPRJones
With Google Maps there's no reason to get the paid ad-on. And if you don't have GPS built-in Google Maps can still work, it just uses the cell tower grid to get a close approximation to your actual location. The denser the towers in the area you are in, the better it does.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 6:33 pm
by GORDON
I *heard* that if you have Verizon, that functionality is killed because they want you using the paid GPS add-on.
I've never taken the time to confirm.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:46 pm
by TPRJones
That would imply that Verizon sucks.
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 10:36 pm
by Leisher
When we had Verizon, the GPS was $10. Don't know if there was a way around it. That was 2 years ago.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:22 pm
by GORDON
Used Google Maps "GPS" (but not really) for the first time yesterday, when my laptop battery finally died (on which I have a real GPS receiver attached). The Blackberry/Google Maps app knew where I was, and got me where I was going. Can't complain. The significance is that I am not paying $10/month for the GPS functionality through verizon. My understanding is that Google Maps triangulates you from a couple cell towers your phone can see, so it worked well near my state capital where one assumes there are many cell phone towers.
Edited By GORDON on 1256779350
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:23 pm
by Cakedaddy
I use the GPS on the iphone (which works the same way) all the time. It's functional, but not a good GPS.