Work are offering me a Blackberry and I've never had one before. They're recommending the 8520 but I have the option to take any. I need long battery life, it needs to be compact, I need it to sync with work and personal email accounts, but that's about all I want from it. Oh, and for it to make and receive calls(!) Is this a good model to go for, or are their better ones out there for my needs?
I looked too, but decided against that model as I heard some negative points about it (for one, the joystick kept failing).
Blackberry are great for e-mails. The 8900 is much better bet from what i've heard. It has a GPS too.
(still not decided what to get myself yet).
have a nose on the blackberry site for all the techy spec, but also worth a look on www.blackberryforums.com and www.crackberry.com Loads of info about of the models,
i have an 8900 and its an absolutely cracking phone, i've upgraded to un official OS 5 and its a Muchly improved version over the 4.6 most ship with,
battery like on all smart phones your looking a day - 2 days if your using wifi a lot, doing a lot of emails, etc. but charging over night is fine,
they are without doubt The best platform for Emails, designed around the email side of things, they are also a great phone and the ability to set the letters on the keyboard as speed dials is great, there are better phones out there like the nokia's or the i-phones but none are as good as the bb for business use!
some of the models released of the different versions are more business orientated and as such dont come with camera's etc. but a check on the specs on the BB wesite will help confirm that,
there are also the Appworlds which have a Lot of free and decent apps (google maps very good if you have gps) that help users, and some low priced ones that are spot on, (i especially like the led colour customizing ones that let you change the led colour for different contacts)
i love my bb and feel lost with out it now,
I'd ask them to stretch to the Blackberry Bold I think its model no 9700. Its an all round more solid looking unit, and is not too much bigger, I had the curve for a while and sent it back, I didnt like the Trackball thingy but that may be only on the 8900, its seemed like something just waiting to break, if you ever use someones blackberry with a trackball which is over 9 months old It just doesnt seem to work like a new one IMHO. I plumped for the touchscreen STORM 2, I like it, its bigger and weighs a lot more than the non touchscreen versions though. I like the Blackberrys purely because I dont want to join the iphone "look at this app" type pub bores.
Agree with Timmo on battery life, expect 2-3 days for a normal user, and a day and a half for a heavy user.