I am an attorney for RIM. Because of the similarities between the BlackJack and BlackBerry, we are interested in documenting instances of confusion. Please contact me at jg10005@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Thank you.

It’s not my intent to start a CDMA vs. GSM war here because they both have their pro’s and con’s and it’s been debated to death. But I will tell you as an IT Director and BES Administrator I don’t encourage any of our users to go CDMA with Blackberry hardware.

Verizon is it’s own worst enemy when it comes to not releasing devices in conjunction with other providers. They seem to release devices on the downturn of their popularity instead of their “peak” due to their “high standard of testing”. In many cases up to a year or more later. They were the last to get the Treo 650, the last to get the RAZR, the last to get an 8700 gen Blackberry and so on. As a matter of fact, they were last as a Blackberry provider to provide a BIS solution. You had to have a BES which they just happen to be reselling as well. Most of what they release is a copy of the GSM counterparts with cripped feature sets. Only recently have they stepped up with smartphone devices. Even now, they lag behind with last years technology. When they are a “first” with a smartphone release, it’s usally a stinker. Examples are Kyoceria 7135 and the Treo 700w? The Q was okay but totally beaten out by the GSM verisons such as the Dash and the Blackjack. And ususally the smartphones are released without the most important features enabled. Like push mail for the 700w and the Q. Both came much later. Verizon excuses their late release of devices due to their rigorus testing, but the Q was nearly useless out of the box and needed an IMMEDIATE fix. So much for their rigorous testing. The testing is not what takes so long. It’s the rewrite of the phones software and the crippling of the hardware that take the extra time.

Again, Verizon has a very good network but don’t make the mistake of looking to them for the lastest or most flexible devices. They just don’t have them and as long as they continue to rewrite software and cripple hardware, they never will. And don’t even think about going CDMA if you depend on your blackberry to work worldwide.

I have been telling my mom for weeks if not months that I really want a BlackBerry Pearl for Christmas. It has been number two on my list right behind the XBox 360. Based on all the rumors I thought that the BlackBerry Pearl would be out the week of Thanksgiving so when my mom told me that she just saw a commercial for that Black Pearl, I told here without seeing what she was talking about that yeah, this is what I want.

She went out Friday morning like she does every year and trys to hit all the sales. There happens to be a Cingular store in the same plaza as Best Buy so she walked in and said that she wanted to get that Black Pearl for me like the one she saw in the commerical.

The people in the store asked her if she meant the BlackJack and she said is that the BlackBerry with the camera on it. The told her yes so she bought it.

Lucky for me I read this post and asked my mom if this was the commercial she was talking about. Knowing that this will be in the store along with the BlackBerry Pearl when it comes out I asked my mom to make sure that she doesn’t get the wrong one.

She then asked me if I was sure and when I said yes told me that she already bought the wrong one. If I wouldn’t have figured this out, we my have gone passed the return period.

Once again thanks for this post.

I wondered for a while now if MS pays for ad spots featuring Wndows Mobile devices. Watch closely and you will notice that Cingular isn’t mentioned in this ad until the very end.

The Blackjack does have one advantage over the Pearl: it works on Cingular’s 3G network where it is available. However, in all other respects it is not nearly as good as the Pearl. And of course, it’s crippled by Windows Mobile. It’s funny…I’ve read some comments on forums where new Blackjack users are already complaining about the memory getting bogged down, and someone having to explain to them about how the close “x” icon doesn’t really close programs, and they have to go to task manager to do that and free up system memory. Anytime a Windows Mobile device is released, you can bank on that issue coming up.

Given the way that Cingular seems to mishandle BlackBerry launches, it makes me wonder if Cingular doesn’t get paid a bundle of money from Microsoft to push their products at the expense of others.

If RIM is smart, they’ll start to release CDMA versions of their devices concurrent with their GSM versions, and bypass Cingular and go straight to Verizon in the US. Verizon would blow away Cingular with their better network and customer service. In fact, if Verizon can get BB’s concurrently released in CDMA versions, they will take away from Cingular one of the few advantages they have left, and will surpass them even sooner in total subscribers.