In Love With Blackberry – And Cheap Tricks Using It!

For the last few months I’ve been contemplating getting myself one of these “Smart Phones”. You know, the ones with applications and web surfing and email capabilities. Anyway, I narrowed it down to the Treo and the Blackberry. There were a couple of things I absolutely wanted:

1) Full Keyboard – I HATE HATE HATE typing on a phone pad with multiple letters per key. I MUCH prefer having a qwerty keyboard to type on.

2) Email – I find that I need potable email much more than I need a phone.

3) Calendar syncing – I can forget stuff… so I want to be able to sync up my calendar on my computer with the device

4) Speaker Phone – I don’t like holding a phone while I’m driving at all. It’s not safe.

Things I didn’t need:

1) Web – I know it’s cool to have it… but I don’t need it on my phone. Not to mention data plans are fringing expensive.

2) Camera – I’ve got digital cameras already thanks

3) MP3 Player – Got an iPod Nano thanks

AND I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT A CONTRACT! I’ve been using a pay-as-you-go cell phone for the last 2 years specifically because cell service providers SCREW you every chance they get, so I was NOT going to sign a 2-3 year contract. The problem is that without a contract the phones can cost up to $600+ bucks.

I decided I’d get a refurbished or used one to keep the cost down and I started looking at the Treos and the Blackberrys. Both had their pros and cons and I looked around for a few weeks. One night, but friend Bruxy came over to record our podcast, and I knew he had a Blackberry. I asked him if I could see it for a second, and he pulled out this BRAND NEW one. I said “Hey, this isn’t your blackberry”. To which he replied “No, I just got this one this week. I still have my other one in the car…. DO YOU WANT IT?”

So Bruxy GAVE me his old Blackberry which is still a current model… the Blackberry 8700r. I JUST LOVE THIS THING!

So since I had the phone, i went to Rogers and signed up for a plan WITHOUT a contract. Included in the plan was a $25/month data plan for email. It works just fine… BUT… I found a way to get my email… and send email… WITHOUT needing a data plan. Here’s how it works:

Rogers (my service provider) gives each cell phone an email address that will be converted into an SMS Text message to your phone. For Rogers the email address is your phone number@pcs.rogers.com. So if you email to that address, it will show up on a persons cell phone as a text message. Sooooo….

Now when I go out, i just set my “john@themovieblog.com” email address to forward a copy to “my phone number”@pcs.rogers .com and VOILA! I get my email on my phone… FOR FREE… without needing to use a data plan.

Also, did you know you can send email using text? It’s a little more complicated… but it’s free and doesn’t need a data plan. This only works on Rogers, so it might work differently on your service provider:

First, send a text message to the number 0000000000 (yes, ten zeros)

Next, make the very first thing in your message the email address you want to send the message to

Lastly, after the email address leave a space, and then type out your message, then hit send

The service will turn your text message into an email and send it to the email address on the first line of your message. VOILA! Free outgoing email without needing a Data plan.

I tested this system out for a few days to make sure I liked how it worked… and it works great. So I just went ahead and cancelled the $25 data plan…. because I don’t need it.

So now I have a free blackberry that I can use as my phone, calender (and other applications) and email WITHOUT needing a data plan or any sort of contract. I’m very happy.